China factory holds kissing contest to celebrate reopening after coronavirus lockdown

Beijing : A factory in China is being criticized viciously for organizing a kissing contest to celebrate the reopening after end of lockdown due to coronavirus.

According to 7 News, a video of the contest - where participants were invited to kiss while separated by plexiglass - has been viewed over 10 million times on Chinese social media platforms.

The factory's act is being criticized by several people for applying a lose approach and not maintaining the basic social distancing measure.

The furniture factory named 'Yueya' in the city of Suzhou invited 10 couples to take part in the kissing contest.

The photos and the videos of the contest are being circulated by the employees on the social media. As claimed most people are married couples and were seen kissing through a clear pane of glass. All the employees were seen wearing the blue boiler suit.

According to Global Times, the kissing competition was organised to celebrate the resumption of work in the factory and China began easing restrictions imposed during the lockdown to contain the spread of the highly infectious coronavirus. 

Mr Ma, the owner of the factory, said that the glass had been placed between participants to minimise risk of infection. 

Mr Ma told local media: "Some of the participants were actually married couples who both work in the factory. This pandemic has made everyone very tense. They haven't been able to relax, and that might cause mistakes in the production process. That's why I arranged the kissing contest to make everyone happy. To avoid any accidents, we put a piece of plexiglass between everyone and disinfected it with alcohol several times."