Hyundai halts work after worker tests positive for coronavirus

SEOUL－Hyundai Motor shut down a factory in South Korea on Friday after a worker tested positive for the new coronavirus, disrupting production of popular models such as the Palisade SUV.

Shares of the automaker ended down more than 5 percent after the news, while the wider market was down 3.3 percent.

The closing dealt a fresh setback to Hyundai Motor, which has gradually resumed production at local plants hit by a Chinese parts shortage in the wake of the virus outbreak.

South Korea has the most infected people outside China, affecting companies like Samsung and Hyundai.

South Korea on Friday reported 256 new cases, bringing the total number of infected to 2,022, as the world prepared for a global recession.

"The company has also placed colleagues who came in close contact with the infected employee in self-quarantine and taken steps to have them tested for possible infection," Hyundai Motor said in a news release.

The company added that it was disinfecting the factory. It did not say when production would resume.

The city of Ulsan, where Hyundai operates five car manufacturing plants, is less than an hour from Daegu, the epicenter of outbreak in South Korea. The plants have an annual production capacity of 1.4 million vehicles, or nearly 30 percent of Hyundai's global production. Hyundai employs 34,000 workers there in the world's biggest car complex.

The factory that was shut down produces sport utility vehicles such as the Palisade, Tucson, Santa Fe and Genesis GV80.

A factory run by Hyundai supplier Seojin Industrial had been closed after the death of a virus-infected worker there. It reopened Wednesday.

South Korea's tech giant Samsung Electronics shut down a phone factory in the southeastern city of Gumi over the past weekend after one of its workers tested positive. It resumed production on Monday.

Meanwhile, South Korea's top carrier, Korean Air Lines, said on Friday it would cut the number off lights to the United States in March, as part of a plan to cut its global capacity by 11 percent that month.

It plans to check temperatures of passengers traveling to the US before boarding and said it would not allow anyone with a temperature higher than 37.5 Celsius to fly. One of its flight attendants who served the Incheon to Los Angeles route has tested positive for virus.