Taiwan’s Foxconn, the top assembler of Apple’s iPhones, issued a statement Sunday night in which it said the company has secured enough workers to meet “seasonal demand” at all major China factories. Foxconn said its recruitment goals have been reached “ahead of schedule at the plants” after the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
Kensaku Ihara for Nikkei Asian Review:
This signals progress from early March when Chairman Young Liu told investors that Chinese plants were operating at roughly 50% capacity of normal.
The company also stressed that it has instituted rigorous measures to prevent infection. A total of 55,000 workers received PCR coronavirus tests, and over 40,000 people underwent chest X-rays, according to Foxconn.
The company is expected to hit a peak production period after July to manufacture iPhones for release in the fall.
MacDailyNews Take: Good news, if the Chinese government is actually providing accurate coronavirus numbers regarding new cases, recoveries, and deaths. That’s a big “IF.” Given their past history in this and many, many other matters, significant doubt is warranted and independently-verified proof required before we’ll believe anything being excreted by the Chinese government. Hopefully, Foxconn iPhone factories never see a case of SARS-CoV-2.
More hopeful items out of Italy (showing the merits of social distancing):
++ Italy's 🇮🇹 number of registered Covid-19 cases grows by 8.1%. First time it is down to single digit.
Today's death toll is 601 down from 651 & 793 in the previous two days.
Italy went into lockdown two weeks ago. Scientists said it would take two weeks to see some results.
— Ferdinando Giugliano (@FerdiGiugliano) March 23, 2020
Today (March 23rd) the daily percentage growth of confirmed #COVID19 cases in Italy is 8.10%, from 59,138 to 63,927.
The absolute increase amounts to 4789 cases and is lower than the increase in the four previous days.
See the graph on daily % growth.#coronavirus pic.twitter.com/OK8JUU9kAN
— Riccardo Puglisi (@ricpuglisi) March 23, 2020