2020年经济学人 流行病威胁下世界经济的良药(2)

The first task is to get manpower and money to hospitals. China drafted in 40,000 health workers to Hubei province. Britain may bring medics out of retirement¹. This week the World Bank made $12bn and the IMF $50bn available for covid-19. The Global Fund, which fights diseases like malaria² and TB, said countries can switch grants. In America Congress is allocating³ $8.3bn of funding. The country has some of the world’s most advanced hospitals, but its fragmented health system has little spare capacity. Much more money will be needed.

第一个任务是为医院筹集人力和资金。中国向湖北省抽调了4万名医护人员。英国可能会让退休的医护人员重返工作岗位。本周，世界银行和国际货币基金组织分别为抗击covid-19提供了120亿美元和500亿美元。抗击疟疾和结核病等疾病的全球基金表示，各国可以改变资助方式。美国国会正在拨款83亿美元。美国拥有世界上最先进的医院，但其支离破碎的卫生系统几乎没有备用生产力。需要更多资金。

Just as important is to slow the spread of the disease by getting patients to come forward for testing when outbreaks are small and possible to contain. They may be deterred⁴ in many countries, including much of America, where 28m people are without health coverage⁵ and many more have to pay for a large slug of their own treatment. People also need to isolate⁶ themselves if they have mild symptoms, as about 80% of them will. Here sick pay matters, because many people cannot afford to miss work. In America a quarter of employees have no access to paid sick leave and only scattered⁷ states and cities offer sickness benefits. Often the self-employed, a fifth of Italy’s workforce⁸, do not qualify. One study found that, in epidemics⁹, guaranteed sick pay cuts the spread of flu in America by 40%.

同样重要的是，在疫情规模不大且可能得到控制的情况下，要让患者主动进行检测，从而减缓疾病的传播。在许多国家，包括美国的大部分地区，人们可能会望而却步，因为有2800万人没有医疗保险，更多人不得不为自己的治疗买单。如果有轻微症状，人们也需要自我隔离，大约80%的人能做到。在这种情况下，带薪病假很重要，因为许多人负担不起失业。在美国，四分之一的员工没有带薪病假，只有一些零零散散的州和城市提供病假福利。通常情况下，占意大利劳动力五分之一的私营企业不符合条件。一项研究发现，在流行病期间，保证带薪病假将使流感在美国的传播减少40%。

Sick pay also helps soften¹⁰ the blow to demand which, along with a supply shock and a general panic, is hitting economies. These three factors, as China shows, can have a dramatic effect on output. Manufacturing activity there sank in February to its lowest level since managers were first surveyed in 2004. In the quarter to March the economy as a whole could shrink for the first time since the death of Mao Zedong. The OECD expects global growth this year to be its slowest since 2009. Modelling by academics at the Australian National University suggests that GDP in America and Europe would be 2% lower than it would have been in the absence of a pandemic and perhaps as much as 8% lower if the rate of deaths is many times higher than expected. Financial markets are pricing in fear. The S&P 500 has fallen by 8% from its peak on February 19th. Issuance of corporate¹¹ debt on Wall Street has more or less stopped. The yield on ten-year Treasuries¹² dipped below 1% for the first time ever.

需求下降再加上供应冲击和普遍的恐慌对经济造成打击，带薪病假也有助于减轻这种影响。正如中国所显示的，这三个因素可能对产出产生巨大影响。2月份制造业活动水平降至自2004年首次对经理人进行调查以来的最低水平。在第三季度，中国经济整体可能出现自毛泽东逝世后的首次萎缩。经合组织预计，今年全球经济增速将达到2009年以来最低。澳大利亚国立大学学者建立的模型显示，美国和欧洲的GDP将比没有流行病的情况下低2%，如果死亡率比预期高出许多倍，则可能低8%。金融市场在恐惧中定价。标准普尔500指数从2月19日的最高点下跌了8%。华尔街的公司债券发行或多或少已经停止。十年期国债的收益率有史以来第一次跌至1%以下。

1 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

2 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

3 allocating   

分配，分派( allocate的现在分词 )； 把…拨给

参考例句：

• Administrative practice generally follows the judicial model in allocating burdens of proof. 在分配举证责任方面，行政实践通常遵循司法模式。
• A cyclical multiplexing technique, allocating resources in fixed-time slices. 以固定的时间片分配资源的循环复用技术。

4 deterred   

v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I told him I wasn't interested, but he wasn't deterred. 我已告诉他我不感兴趣，可他却不罢休。
• Jeremy was not deterred by this criticism. 杰里米没有因这一批评而却步。 来自辞典例句

5 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

6 isolate   

vt.使孤立，隔离

参考例句：

• Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
• We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。

7 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

8 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

9 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

10 soften   

v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和

参考例句：

• Plastics will soften when exposed to heat.塑料适当加热就可以软化。
• This special cream will help to soften up our skin.这种特殊的护肤霜有助于使皮肤变得柔软。

11 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

12 treasuries   

n.（政府的）财政部( treasury的名词复数 )；国库，金库

参考例句：

• Yields on Treasuries, Bunds and gilts can remain at historically low levels. 美国国债、德国国债和英国国债的收益率仍然可以维持在历史低位。 来自互联网
• Treasuries and gold rose in response but the dollar fell sharply. 接着，国债和黄金的价格上涨，而美元价格则猛跌。 来自互联网