Romanian home appliances manufacturer Arctic, a unit of Turkey’s Arcelik, said that it has temporarily closed its factory in Gaesti, in Arges county, after 66 workers contracted the coronavirus infection.

Arctic aims to restart production of coolers on June 2, while the refrigerator lines are planned to resume operations on May 25, it said in a press release on Saturday.

In the meantime, the factory will go through an intense disinfection programme.

All 4,000 employees working in Gaesti have been sent into technical unemployment until production line resume activity.

Arctic confirmed the first coronavirus case at the factory on May 7. None of the infected Arctic employees had displayed any Covid-19 symptoms.

Arctic Gaesti, established in 1970, was acquired by Arcelik in 2002. The unit manufactures three main brands of refrigerators: Arctic for the domestic market and Beko and Grundig mainly for exports.

In October 2019, Arctic opened a washing machie factory in Ulmi, also in Dambovita county, with a production capacity of 2.2 million units per year.