Saigon Hi-Tech Park, a complex of Vietnamese electronics factories, has been forced to close and require workers to live on site after more than 750 employees tested positive for COVID-19.

The park is home to many high-tech companies, including an Intel chip assembly and testing plant and a Samsung factory.

Samsung, which manufactures more than half of its smartphones in Vietnam, closed three of its 16 factories after 46 cases were found among its employees and reduced its available workforce from 7,000 to 3,000.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has required companies to set up a plan to accommodate workers either in factories or off-site and transport them directly to their facilities.

Intel has already made arrangements for housing and is continuing with its scaled-down operations.

Nidec Sankyo, which manufactures magnetic card readers, has been closed since July 3 due to 600 reported cases of COVID-19. Contract manufacturer Jabil has also shut down operations at the park, as has a company named “Pou Chen,” which is a key supplier to Nike and Adidas.

It’s currently unclear whether the closures will create product shortages or delays in shipping, but they clearly have the potential to dampen supply chains.

Technology exports make a substantial contribution to the Vietnamese economy, and the Saigon High Tech Park accounts for 30% of the exports generated by the neighboring city of Ho Chi Minh.

The City tightened its lockdown last Friday, even ban food delivery, a decision that triggered panic in grocery stores.

Vietnam currently has a low vaccination rate of around four percent of its nearly 100 million people and experiences more than 1,000 cases of coronavirus per day.

The government has prioritized vaccines for factory workers, and companies like Intel and Samsung are helping with immunizations. Nikkei Asia Intel reported on Tuesday that Intel had vaccinated more than 70% of its employees nationwide.

A canned declaration On the Samsung Vietnam website on Tuesday, the company donated nearly 11 billion VND (US $ 480,000) to control and prevent COVID in Thai Nguyen Province in the northeast region of Vietnam, s ‘adding to previous donations totaling VND 112 billion.

The donations come as no surprise after the Vietnamese government appealed to Samsung in May to help control the virus. ®