EV Maker Nio and Yum China The Latest Zero-Covid Victims

Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO and Yum China are the latest victims of China’s heavy-handed zero-Covid strategy, which is still taking a significant toll on factories, tourist sites, travel and the economy.

Nio suspended production at its plants in the eastern city of Hefei amid rising Covid-19 cases, while Yum China, operator of the KFC and Pizza Hut chains, said on Wednesday that 1,400 of its 12,400 stores in the country were temporarily closed or had to provide limited services in October due to Covid.

That figure is well up on the 900 stores affected in September and the 400 or so closed in July and August.

The impact was also felt in the central city of Zhengzhou, where the industrial park housing a massive Apple iPhone factory announced a fresh lockdown, even as the plant’s owner, Foxconn, scrambles to placate workers frustrated with ongoing virus curbs.

China is fighting its largest outbreak since the summer as cases erupt across several major cities, which has forced millions of residents to stay home or go to centralised quarantine facilities under the country’s strict zero-Covid policy.

“Nationwide, consumers are travelling less and reducing expenditures,” Foxconn said in its quarterly earnings report. “The Covid situations remain uncertain with regional outbreaks continuing to impact our operations.”

For Tuesday, China reported 2,755 new local cases, the most since mid-August.

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Production Stops at Two Nio Plants

On Wednesday, shares in Nio, China’s 13th-largest electric vehicle maker by sales, tumbled after it confirmed media reports that it stopped production at its two plants after struggling to cope with curbs imposed through October that saw various parts of Hefei locked down.

“Our production base was severely impacted by the pandemic in October and so deliveries to a proportion of users was delayed. For this we apologise,” Nio said in a statement on Tuesday that showed a 7.5% fall in October deliveries from the month before.

While China’s zero Covid policy is increasingly out of step with the rest of the world, it has vowed to stay the course in the face of mounting public and business frustration by reacting to even a single case with lockdowns and mass testing.

Cases in Most Big Cities

More than 80% of major Chinese cities reported cases last month, with the spread fuelled by holiday travel and new subvariants, according to research house Gavekal Dragonomics.

“On some measures China’s current Covid situation is about as bad as it has ever been,” Capital Economics wrote in a Tuesday note, adding that while there is little sign of major industrial disruption, the risk of getting quarantine is depressing consumer activity.

“And there’s little prospect of a lasting change as long as zero-Covid remains the national goal,” it said.

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said that China’s lack of a clear exit strategy from the policy meant that the threat of lockdowns remained ever-present and a key source of uncertainty.

“I am currently in home quarantine for seven days, while the European Chamber’s Beijing office has a colleague stuck in Tianjin who, like many others currently, is finding it near impossible to travel back to the capital,” its head, Joerg Wuttke, said this week.

In Shanghai, the fall-out from the shuttering of the city’s Disney Resort after the visit of a single Covid-positive case continued, with affected residents going online to share notices they had received after they or someone they were in recent contact with had visited the park.

While some said on social media platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohngshu that they were sent to quarantine hotels, others said they were sent to sparsely furnished isolation rooms created from shipping containers.

“Is there anyone unluckier than me?” said Xiaohongshu user “sanmingliu”, who posted photos of her shipping container room. The authenticity of the posts was not able to be verified.

Shanghai said on Tuesday it had tested 439,000 people in relation to the Disney resort situation. On Wednesday, it reported finding one locally transmitted case the day before.