Why countries can’t meet the demand for gear against covid-19

A host of efforts are under way to unblock bottlenecks

標題字彙：

1. gear 有齒輪的意思，這裡是裝置的意思（the equipment, clothe that you need for a particular activity)
2. unblock bottlenneck 打破僵局（瓶頸）
3. a host of 許多、一系列

“THE BUILDING next door,” says Flavio Volpe, “is a seniors’ home.” Over Easter, as he drove to and from his office, children were outside, holding up signs sending love to grandparents within. The coronavirus had ruled out visits and hugs. On Easter Monday, April 13th, the director of the home, in the west end of Toronto, reported that 25 of its 247 residents had died of covid-19. “If you’re not asking what more you can do,” Mr Volpe says, “we’re all going to fall short.”

【字彙解析】

1. Flavio Volpe 再網上查到這個人是加拿大汽車零件製造商協會會長。
2. rule out: to prevent something from happening, 阻止某事發生。
3. fall short :未達到數量、短缺。

For Mr Volpe, that means responding to the surge in demand for essential medical supplies caused by the pandemic. He is president of APMA, the trade association for Canada’s auto-parts suppliers. So far 77 member firms are converting some capacity to making medical equipment. A consortium led by one of the biggest, Linamar, is helping to assemble ventilators. Woodbridge, an upholsterer, is turning out masks. Plastics firms are producing face shields; airbag-makers, gowns; others, nose-swabs.

【字彙解析】

1. respond to 對..做出回應
2. surge in the demand for 對....需求的上升
3. convert sth. to 改變/轉變為...原文中convert capacity to making medical equipment意思是說一些汽車零件商將一些產能改用來生產醫療器材;
4. consortium  聯營企業；財團，銀團
5. assemble 組裝
6. upholsterer 室內裝飾者
7. turn out 英文釋義是 produce or make sth, 是生產、製造的意思
8. gown 是指女式長裙,這裡是指病號穿的袍子
9. nose-swab 這裡指用來檢測用的鼻腔拭子

Countries the world over are scrambling for kit. The hottest commodities are personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gowns and masks, ventilators for the critically ill and chemicals to make tests. Demand for PPE has risen not merely at the giddy pace of infections (of which nearly 2.4m had been confirmed worldwide by April 19th), but faster still, because of the risk of transferring the virus to colleagues and others. Britain’s guidelines, for example, say that doctors, nurses and care workers should replace gloves and aprons after every contact with a patient. Other kit, such as face masks, can be changed after each shift.

【字彙解析】

1. scramble for sth: 爭搶
2. kit: 成套用具,這裡指
3. at the giddy pace:  giddy 飄飄然, 這裡指以一種飄飄然的速度
4. critically: 嚴重地 critically ill 是指病危

Matching such standards seems to be proving impossible as supplies run short. Estimates of the increase in demand run up to 20 times the normal level. In Britain, health officials said on April 17th that some PPE may now be reused rather than discarded. Some medical staff have used bin liners for improvised protection; care homes are complaining of chronic shortages. (On April 19th the government appointed Paul Deighton, chairman of The Economist Group, to oversee the national effort to produce and distribute PPE.) In Italy, doctors in some hospitals go into eight-hour shifts wearing adult nappies to avoid wasting the precious PPE they are wearing.

【字彙解析】

1. run up to 20 times the normal level 達到普通水準的20倍
2. bin liners 垃圾袋
3. improvised 即興地
4. chronic 慢性的
5. nappies 尿布

Typically in markets, surges in demand call forth extra supply. But the supply of medical gear has not been able to expand at the breakneck pace needed to keep up with the virus. Much is internationally traded. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis estimate that in 2018 America’s imports of equipment needed to treat covid-19 met 30% of its demand; China alone satisfied 9%. China made half the world’s masks before the pandemic began; not surprisingly, its exports of PPE fell by 15%, year-on-year, in January and February. Its production of masks has in fact increased 12-fold since the pandemic started, but most are going to domestic use—eg, for workers in factories returning to work.

【字彙解析】

1. call forth 引起,　to cause something  to exist 例句：the proposed shopping centre called forth an angry response from local recidents.
2. medical gear 醫療配置
3. at the breaknek pace 以驚人的速度　breakneck 在字義上是脖子斷掉，形容非常危險
4. keep up with 　跟上
5. China alone　單單中國，單單用的是alone

Worse, the world economy’s sudden halt has caused bottlenecks. Flexport, a freight forwarder, says that normally half of all air freight cargo (on some routes, up to 80%) travels in the holds of passenger planes that are no longer flying; shipping lines, meanwhile, have cancelled sailings or dropped ports from their itineraries. Vendors’ commercial terms have become tighter too. Crooks are trying to get in on the act as hospitals have become desperate and prices have shot up. The FBI has warned buyers against dodgy brokers taking advance payment for non-existent equipment.

【字彙解析】

1. halt 停滯
2. bottlenneck　障礙，僵局
3. in the holds of
4. shipping lines 航線
5. meanwhile　 與此同時
6. port 港口
7. sailing　航行
8. itinerary　行程
9. commercial term 商業條款，收緊商業條款政策用的是become tighter
10. crooks　騙子
11. to get in on the act: to take advantage of something that someone else started,中文意思是說在其他人成功開始做某事後要湊一腳也加入；例句：a lot companies want to get in on the act when maskes become short and prices short up.
12. against doing sth 反對做某事
13. shot up 狂漲
14. dodgy brokers dodgy　狡猾的中間商；狡猾的；brokers 中間商

International goodwill has been in short supply too. Amid several reports of jiggery-pokery, French officials claimed that American buyers redirected masks from China destined for the Grand Est region, after stopping the shipment on the tarmac at Shanghai airport and offering three times the original price.

【字彙解析】

1. goodwill:善意
2. redirect：使改變方向
3. destined：註定的
4. tarmac：柏油碎石地面

Several countries are using more conventional methods to keep hold of what they have. The European Union has restricted exports of essential goods to most non-members (some countries had even blocked exports to fellow members until the EU stepped in). On April 3rd President Donald Trump ordered restrictions on American exports of PPE, including respirators, masks and gloves. Such curbs run the risk of starting a retaliatory, beggar-thy-neighbour spiral. Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, notes that American imports of the goods in Mr Trump’s order outweigh exports by five to one.

【字彙解析】

1. keep hold of　保有
2. step in　介入
3. curb 限制
4. run the risks of 冒險
5. retaliatory： retalitory 報復
6. outweigh　超過

Amid the scramble, lots of higher-minded efforts like Mr Volpe’s are under way to fill the gap. Some are of cottage-industry dimensions: across Britain, for instance, “scrub hubs” have sprouted, with volunteers making basic gowns at home for doctors, nurses and care workers. But to make more sophisticated gear at scale, you need industrial muscle.

【字彙解析】

1. higher-minded
2. sprout  發芽
3. sophiscated gear 複雜的裝置
4. at scale　大規模地
5. industrial muscle

Fashion firms are turning their supply chains to masks and gowns. Sweden’s H&M has sent 50,000 masks each to Italy and Spain, and is planning to deliver 1m protective, single-use aprons to Swedish hospitals in the coming weeks, all from suppliers in China. Canada Goose, which makes outdoor apparel, has committed itself to making 60,000 disposable gowns, designed for isolation patients, per week from its domestic factories. In France, the LVMH factory that normally makes Christian Dior perfumes has been retooled to produce hand-sanitiser.

【字彙解析】

1. turn sth to sth 將某物轉變為．．
2. apparel 服飾
3. commit oneself to doing 致力於做某事
4. disposable　一次性的
5. retooled　改組，革新
6. hand-sanitiser億四　消毒洗手液

Makers of cars and planes are starting to turn out ventilators and other equipment—sometimes from scratch, sometimes lending their scale to the existing products of specialist companies. On April 14th General Motors began producing critical-care ventilators from Ventec Life Systems, a medical-technology firm, at its car factory in Indiana. Ford, PSA, Valeo and others have also switched from vehicles to ventilators. Israel Aerospace Industries, a defence company, has converted a missile production line to the same.

【字彙解析】

1. turn out
2. from scratch 從頭開始
3. critical-care　重症監護
4. switch from...to　從...轉變為...
5. convert sth to
6. missile production 導彈生產

“With time, we can make anything,” says Mr Volpe at APMA. “Whether you’re making a plastic part that goes into a ventilator or a plastic part that goes into a Jaguar, it’s the same process.” The difference lies in speed. Changing an engineering process, from winning a contract to retooling to production, might normally take six months. That is being compressed into a few days. Canada’s health authorities have helped by speeding up approvals, he says, without dropping their standards. There have been some failures.

【字彙解析】

1. Jaguar 捷豹（汽車品牌）
2. the difference lies in 差別在於
3. win a contratc 贏得合同
4. compress into　濃縮
5. speed up 加速

Medical equipment can indeed be hard to manufacture in hurry, particularly by firms that have never made it before. In Britain, NHS staff report that some new shipments of droplet-resistant gowns—of which there is a severe shortage, because they weren’t included in the existing pandemic stockpile, designed for airborne flu viruses—have failed quality tests when they arrived, rendering them unusable. After some Chinese-made equipment sent to Europe was rejected as substandard, China is now requiring that its exporters meet importing countries’ standards before their goods leave the factory (though that causes more holdups meanwhile).

【字彙解析】

1. indeed　確實
2. in hurry　匆忙之中
3. stockpile　储備
4. ...droplets-resistant gowns-of which there is a serve shortage: 後半句正常語序是there is a severe shortage of gowns　( 這裡用which 指代）
5. airborne　在空氣中傳播的
6. render　使成為，使變成，to cause something to be in a particular state
7. substandard 不合格的
8. holdups　（交通上的）滯留、阻塞

Sourcing high-specification materials also can be difficult, although Barbour has had success switching from its famous wax jackets and Ford is adapting fabric meant for airbags. Mr Volpe says his biggest bottleneck is materials: some unwoven material for specialised masks is made in volume only in China; the supply of resins used in swabs are threatened by American export restraints.

【字彙解析】

1. source　找尋
2. wax jacket　wax是蠟的意思，wax jacket 是防風防水夾克（在夾克上塗蠟達到防風防水的作用）
3. adapt　適應、改造
4. fabric meant
5. unwoven　不織的
6. in volume　大量的
7. resins　樹脂
8. swab　　拭子
    

These problems become even more acute with complicated medical machinery. Britain’s government has overseen a scheme under which aerospace, automobile and engineering companies agreed to make ventilators. However, only one design—adapted from an existing ventilator, from Penlon, a medical-device company—has so far been approved for medical use. Changes to the required specification led the government to cancel an order for thousands of units of a more simple ventilating device, known as “BlueSky”, from a consortium including the Renault and Red Bull Formula 1 groups.

【字彙解析】

1. acute　急性的、尖銳的
2. aerospace　航天的

And clearing one bottleneck may reveal another. Although ventilators, for example, are crucial for treating many covid-19 patients in intensive care, they are not used in isolation. Every ventilator bed requires high-pressure oxygen (which many hospitals cannot provide at scale) as well as other machines to monitor the heart and kidneys. All this takes up more precious space and requires trained staff, of whom many are sick or in precautionary isolation.

【字彙解析】

1. reveal　揭示、透露
2. patients in intensive care　重症監護患者
3. take up space　占空間
4. in precautionary isolation　預防隔離

Even if sufficient stock is available, distributing it is a challenge. General practitioners, ambulances, mental-health services and care homes all need PPE as well as hospitals. In England, NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts and other parts of the service, estimates that the supply chain has gone from delivering to around 250 trusts to tens of thousands of separate organisations. In America, according to a letter from a doctor published in the New England Journal of Medicine, federal agents attempted to confiscate PPE his hospital had ordered.

【字彙解析】

1. general practitioners　全科醫生
2. ambulance　救護車
3. confiscate　沒收、徵用

The problems facing rich countries, daunting as they are, are dwarfed by those awaiting many poor ones. Without domestic production capacity, many are entirely reliant on imported medical equipment, and hence acutely vulnerable to caps on others’ exports: Mr Bown calculates that 93% of Jamaica’s imports of air-purifying respirators come from America; 90% of Cape Verde’s face shields, protective spectacles and gloves come from the EU. Trade restrictions are also obstructing humanitarian aid, as agencies have wrangle with governments to get equipment into countries where they are desperately needed.

【字彙解析】

1. daunting　令人生畏，使人氣餒
2. dwarf　使變小，使相形見絀
3. awaiting await 和wait是差不多的意思，差別在於await 是及物動詞，後面一定要加受詞；await sth 相當於wait for sth; the problems facing rich countries are dwarfed by those awaiting many poor ones. 前半句是the problems rich countries is facing省略is 並前置 ，後半句those awaiting many poor ones  正常語序是those many poor ones are awaiting
4. be reliant on　依靠...
5. acutely 敏銳地
6. caps
7. obstruct　阻礙
8. humanitarian aid　人道援助
9. wrangle with 與...爭吵

There is some hope, though, that the companies newly supplying the home front will turn their attention abroad. Once Canada’s domestic needs are met, says Mr Volpe, his efforts will turn to “all those other countries”, in Africa and elsewhere, “that are going to be defenceless” against the virus. They may need all the help they can get.

【字彙解析】

1. home front
2. turn sth abroad　轉向國外
3. meet domestic needs　滿足國內需求
4. defenceless　沒有防禦能力的

文章概要

2020年新冠疫情導致全球相關疫情物資短缺，原因如下：

1. 需求龐大，此次的需求是平常的２０倍，供應速度遠趕不上病毒傳播的速度
2. 經濟停擺，許多物流運輸線暫停
3. 一些國家為應對國內疫情，限制對於這些物資的出口或是優先用於國內復工使用
4. 各國搶口罩（美國高價搶了法國向大陸買的口罩）
5. 各國對於物資有標準，生產需要達到標準合格後需要花費更多時間
6. 找到生產這些物資的高規格材料不容易，有的受地區限制
7. 生產這些醫療物資的精密機器受到政府監管，只有少量設計被批准，可以接受訂單
8. 任何一個單一物資都對應到其他相關配套物資供給問題（如呼吸器衍生相關配備的高壓氧氣和相關監控機器等）
9. 就算物資都足夠，如何分配也是一個問題，政府不得不徵用物資來分配

但是各國也採取相應措施，如民間各大企業改生產疫情相關物資生產，政府加快審批流程，民間組織自發製造相關物資捐給需要的醫護人員，善用手頭所有的資源等等

但是和這些富裕國家比起來，那些貧窮的國家面對的問題更加嚴峻，他們沒有國內生產的能力，倚靠國外進口；但是目前的出口限制又使的國際人道救援無法順利將物資送往這些急切需要物資的地方。但是這件事仍然有希望， Mr Volpe 說一旦加拿大的國內需求的到滿足了，他會盡他能力去幫助國外那些需要幫助的國家。