World’s Biggest Glove Producer At Risk as Pandemic Hits Home
- Bulk of Malaysia’s recent infections linked to Top Glove plant
- Failure to check virus resurgence is threatening recovery
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The new heart of Malaysia’s worrying virus resurgence is an unlikely place -- the sprawling factory complex of the world’s largest maker of surgical gloves. It’s putting at risk not just a key export for the Southeast Asian manufacturing center, but also a nascent economic recovery.
The government on Monday ordered Top Glove Corp. to close 28 of its factories in phases, after its facility in Klang, Selangor state recorded 1,067 Covid-19 cases, out of 1,884 new daily cases in Malaysia. New infections continued and hit a record high of 2,188 on Tuesday, of which more than half came from the Teratai cluster linked to the company’s worker dormitories.