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Aircraft assembly in Hamburg-Finkenwerder (archive picture)
Photo: Christian Charisius / DPA
There was a corona outbreak at the aircraft manufacturer Airbus in Hamburg.
According to health authorities, a total of 21 employees tested positive.
Quarantine was ordered for around 500 employees.
The cause of the corona outbreak is currently still being investigated, said Airbus.
It is also not yet clear whether it is one of the highly contagious mutations.
The Hanseatic city's health authority does not expect the results to be available until the middle of the week at the earliest.
Despite spatial separation and various protection concepts, it cannot be ruled out that the infected may have had relevant contact with other people at the location, Airbus continued.
That is why the health authority has declared all 500 eligible persons to be first-degree contact persons.
A company spokesman told the "Bild" newspaper, which first reported on the case, that the infected people worked in different factory halls.
In the meantime, serial tests and quarantine measures have been initiated.
A number of potentially affected persons from the relevant production area are in voluntary domestic isolation.
Relocation of production is being examined
The spokesman has not yet been able to say to what extent the corona outbreak is hindering work at the Hamburg site and whether production capacities may have to be relocated.
That is currently being examined.
With more than 12,000 employees, Airbus is Hamburg's largest industrial employer.
Because air traffic has slumped worldwide, the group is making losses overall: in the first half of 2020 alone, the minus amounted to almost two billion euros.
Due to the corona crisis, the company wants to build 40 percent fewer aircraft in the next two years.
A number of jobs are also to be saved: 15,000 jobs in total, more than 5000 of them at the German locations.
In Hamburg, Buxtehude and Fuhlsbüttel, almost 3,200 jobs are on the brink.
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Löw / dpa
