　　It is not a fair fight, but it is a fight that many countries will face all th

游客2024-01-02 7

问题　　It is not a fair fight, but it is a fight that many countries will face all the same. Left to itself, the covid-19 pandemic doubles every five to six days. When you get your next issue of The Economist the outbreak could in theory have infected twice as many people as today. Governments can slow that ferocious pace, but bureaucratic time is not the same as virus time. And at the moment governments across the world are being left flat-footed.
　　The disease is in 85 countries and territories, up from 50 a week earlier. Over 95,000 cases and 3,200 deaths have been recorded. Yet our analysis suggests that many countries which have spotted tens of cases have hundreds more circulating undetected. Iran, South Korea and Italy are exporting the virus. America has registered 159 cases in 14 states but as of March 1st it had, indefensibly, tested just 472 people when South Korea was testing 10,000 a day. Now that America is looking, it is sure to find scores of infections - and possibly unearth a runaway epidemic.
　　Wherever the virus takes hold, containing it and mitigating its effects will involve more than doctors and paramedics. The World Health Organisation has distilled lessons from China for how health-care systems should cope. The same thinking is needed across the government, especially over how to protect people and companies as supply chains fracture and the worried and the ill shut themselves away.
　　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 retirement. This week the World Bank made $12bn and the IMF $50bn available for covid-19. The Global Fund, which fights diseases like malaria and TB, said countries can switch grants. In America Congress is allocating $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.
　　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 deterred in many countries, including much of America, where 28m people are without health coverage and many more have to pay for a large slug of their own treatment. People also need to isolate 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 scattered states and cities offer sickness benefits. Often the self-employed, a fifth of Italy’s workforce, do not qualify. One study found that, in epidemics, guaranteed sick pay cuts the spread of flu in America by 40%.
　　Sick pay also helps soften 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. 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 corporate debt on Wall Street has more or less stopped. The yield on ten-year Treasuries dipped below 1% for the first time ever.

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答案    这场战斗并不公平，但很多国家都要面对。如若任其发展，每5到6天，新冠肺炎感染人数就会增加一倍。而等你看到下一期《经济学人》杂志时，疫情暴发理论上感染的人数可能已是今天的两倍。政府可以减缓这一惊人的速度，但其时间精力投入却追不上病毒发展的速度。目前，各国政府被打了个措手不及。
   目前该疾病已在85个国家和地区出现，而一周前却只有50个。累计发现病例己逾9．5万例，其中死亡3200例。然而，我们的分析表明，许多国家虽已发现了数十例，但其尚有数百例在未被发现的情况下继续传播。伊郎、韩国和意大利都在不断出现病例。美国的14个州也己发现了159例，但截至3月1日，却仅对472人进行了检测(这一点无人能为其辩护)，而韩国每天检测1万人。既然美国己开始关注，势必会检测出大量感染病例，搞不好还会发现疫情已然失控。
   无论病毒在哪里出现，遏制它并减轻其影响都不是仅有医生和护理人员就行了。关于卫生保健体系该如何应对新冠疫情，世卫组织已从中国汲取了很多经验。同样地，政府也要思考，尤其是在供应链断裂、民众恐慌闭门不出以及患者隔离之际，如何为个人和企业提供保障。
   首要任务便是为医院筹集人力和资金。中国抽调了4万名医护人员赶赴湖北省。英国则可能会让退休的医护人员重返工作岗位。本周，世界银行(the World Bank)和国际货币基金组织(IMF)分别为抗击疫情提供了120亿美元和500亿美元资助。抗击疟疾和肺结核等疾病的全球基金(the Global Fund)表示，各国可以调整资助计划。美国国会也正拨款83亿美元，虽然其拥有几家世界上最先进的医院，但其支离破碎的医疗体系能力不足。一切尚需更多的资金。
   同样重要的是，在疫情规模不大且尚可控制的情况下，要让患者主动进行检测，从而减缓疾病的传播。在很多国家，包括美国大部分地区，人们可能会对检测望而却步，因为有2800万人没有医疗保险，而更多的人不得不自己支付一大笔治疗费用。即使出现轻微症状，人们也需要进行自我隔离，大约80％的人会这么做。在这种情况下，病假工资尤为重要，因为很多人负担不起失业。在美国，有四分之一的员工享受不到带薪病假，只有零星的几个州和城市提供这种病假福利。在意大利，个体劳动者占劳动力市场的五分之一，他们通常不符合带薪休假的条件。一项研究发现，疾病传播期间，保证病假工资使流感在美国的传播病例减少了40％。
   需求下降再加上供应冲击以及民众恐慌，都对经济造成了打击，而病假工资亦有助于减轻这一影响。正如在中国所显示的那样，这三个因素会对经济产出造成巨大影响。2月份，中国的制造业活动降至自2004年首次对采购经理进行调查以来的最低水平。经合组织(OECD)预计，今年全球经济增速将会是2009年以来最慢的。澳大利亚国立大学(Australian National University)学者建立的模型显示，美国和欧洲各国的国内生产总值(GDP)将会比没有疫情时下降2％，而如果死亡率比预期高出很多倍，则可能会下降8％。金融市场定价陷入恐慌。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差不多已经停摆。十年期国债的收益率有史以来第一次跌至1％以下。

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