Police and workers at China’s Covid test kit facility get into a fight.

As China attempts to exit its strict anti-virus policies, footage that went viral on social media on Sunday showed scores of employees fighting with authorities at a Covid test kit facility there.

Video from an industrial park in the city of Chongqing in southwest China, geolocated by AFP, shows someone throwing containers towards a group of uniformed workers, scattering what seem to be test kits in the air.

In another video, people are seen gathered in front of a line of police officers at night while loudspeakers broadcast a warning urging them to “stop unlawful acts.”

Many employees had not been paid, a guy who shared footage from the situation in the description.

Other tweets claimed that Zybio, a pharmaceutical business with its headquarters in Chongqing, abruptly sacked personnel who had been hired recently.

Zybio did not answer calls from AFP right away, and the neighborhood police station refused to comment.

One video featured a guy who identified himself as a “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist” and said that “all the workers’ demands are economic in character.” He claimed that the demonstration was not being held for any political reasons.

Although some social media users said the altercation occurred on Saturday night into Sunday morning, AFP was unable to establish the precise time the videos were recorded.

The movies’ backgrounds include distinctively patterned brown and white industrial structures that correspond to earlier pictures of Zybio’s facility in the Dadukou District Jianqiao Industrial Park.

Only one tweet from the previous day identifying the demonstration as a “interesting issue” was still viewable on the popular Weibo social media site on Sunday, with the hashtag “Chongqing Dadukou Pharmaceutical Factory” seeming to be banned.