Re: [新聞] 金融時報：台公衛專家不願「逆時中」　政

https://www.ft.com/content/9c0aaf96-28ed-4dee-88a9-38557a200813

(Google 翻譯再修飾了一下)

Taiwan needs to switch gears to fight first major Covid outbreak
The country that contained the virus for more than a year was not prepared for a surge of infections

台灣必須加快腳步 對抗首波重大新冠肺炎爆發
控制病毒一年多的國家 未能為感染激增做好準備

(Kathrin Hille 台北 2021/06/01 12:00)

Oxygen in short supply, elderly patients dying at home alone, hospitals
struggling to find beds for the newly infected. These scenes seen from the
US to Italy to India for the past 16 months are now playing out in Taiwan
— the country that was a model to the world in containing the virus.

氧氣短缺，老年患者獨自在家死亡，醫院努力為新感染者尋找床位
。這些過去 16 個月從美國到義大利，再到印度的場景現在正在台
灣上演──世界控制病毒的典範國家。

When Covid-19 was first spotted in China, Taiwan was better prepared than
virtually any other country, and meticulously rolled out border control,
quarantine and contact-tracing measures that had been sitting on the books
ever since Sars hit in 2003.

當新冠肺炎一開始在中國發現時，台灣幾乎比任何其他國家都做好
了準備，並一絲不苟地祭出自 2003 年非典型肺炎 (SARS) 爆發以來
就一直存在的邊境管制、檢疫和接觸者追踪措施。

But now infectious diseases experts say health authorities have squandered
the chance to learn from the experiences that other countries had while goingthrough outbreaks.

但現在有傳染病專家表示，衛生當局浪費了從經歷疫情的其他國家
學習經驗的機會。

“Over the past year, our Central Epidemic Command Center did not
recognise the need to prepare ahead of time,” said Su Ih-jen, a public healthexpert who headed Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control at the time of the
Sars epidemic.

在非典型肺炎流行時領導台灣疾管署的公共衛生專家蘇益仁你，「
在過去的一年裡，我們中央流行病指揮中心沒有認知到提前準備的
必要性。」

First and foremost, Taipei dropped the ball on testing. Throughout the
pandemic, health minister Chen Shih-chung resisted mass screening using
rapid test kits, insisting on the targeted use of polymerase chain reaction, orPCR tests — a method that yields more accurate results but takes more time.
He also blocked research into the efficacy of different rapid test kits on themarket and the building of stocks.

首先，台北在篩檢中失誤。在整個大流行期間，衛生部長陳時中
拒絕使用快篩試劑進行大規模篩檢，堅持使用聚合酶連鎖反應
(核酸檢測或 PCR 檢測)──這種方法可以產生更準確的結果，但
需要更多時間。他還阻止了對市場上不同快篩試劑有效性的研究
和庫存建立。

That has triggered a shortage of test kits and led to vastly diverging accuracyrates in different parts of the country depending on what test kits the localauthorities used. The health authorities only last week ordered a state lab toexperiment with different test kits to see which were the most accurate —
information that could have been easily collected from other countries in thepast year.

這導致了篩檢試劑的短缺，並造成該國不同地區的準確率大相徑庭
──結果取決於地方當局使用的試劑而定。就在上週，衛生當局才
下令一國家實驗室對不同的篩檢試劑進行試驗，以確定哪種篩檢
試劑最準確──而這些資訊在過去一年中很容易從其他國家收集到。

As a result, a large backlog of test samples has formed. This bars the CentralEpidemic Command Center from getting a clear, real-time picture of where,
how and how fast the virus is spreading — knowledge vital for fighting it.

結果，形成了大量的篩檢採樣積壓。這使中央流行病指揮中心無法
獲得有關病毒傳播地點、方式和速度的清晰即時情勢──這是對抗
病毒至關重要的情報。

Medical experts also say that Taipei put patients with light symptoms up in
the best-equipped hospital beds before the local outbreak. Hospitals were
therefore not ready to rapidly take up the large numbers of severe cases
arriving now.

醫學專家還說，台北在當地大爆發前將輕症患者安置在裝置最完善
的病床上，因此醫院還未能準備好迅速處理現在到院的大量重症
案例。

Another problem appears to be cultural, or even personal. The health minister’s stellar record in keeping the virus out for so long has earned him so
much authority that other public health experts have been discouraged from
challenging him. In a pun on Chen’s first name, which sounds like the
Chinese word for “clock”, criticising the minister is called “going
counterclockwise”.

另一個問題似乎是文化上的──甚至是個人的。這位衛生部長長期
將病毒拒之門外的出色記錄為他贏得不少權威，以至於其他公共
衛生專家都不願向他提出挑戰。由於陳時中名字聽起來像中文的
「時鐘」，因此批評部長的行為被雙關稱為「逆時鐘」。

“People have realised that going counterclockwise would not end well, and
that has discouraged local officials from taking the initiative,” said Su.

蘇表示，「人們已經意識到逆時鐘走不會有好結果，這阻礙了地方
官員採取主動的作為。」

Some of the country’s biggest strengths in containing the virus over the
past year cannot come to bear here: Taiwan’s meticulous contact tracing
helped stop earlier small-scale clusters, but the health authorities are now toooverwhelmed by the sheer size and speed of the outbreak.

過去一年該國在控制病毒方面的某些最大優勢不能在此發揮作用：
台灣仔細的接觸者追踪有助阻止早期的小規模群聚，但衛生當局現
在已承受不住爆發的規模和速度。

Its first significant local outbreak of Covid-19 has so far caused the numberof infections to rise seven-fold to 8,511 cases as of Monday and the death
toll to balloon from 12 to 124 in three weeks.

截至週一為止，其首次當地新冠肺炎爆發事件導致感染人數已增加
七倍到 8,511 例，三週內死亡人數從 12 人激增至 124 人。

None of this negates the success Taiwan had in keeping the virus at bay for
more than a year. Thus is the nature of a pandemic that it will test just aboutany health system to breaking point.

這一切也不能否定台灣一年多來在控制病毒方面取得的成功。疾病
大流行的天性就是會讓任何衛生體系接受測試到極限。

Taipei now needs a different skillset. While rigour and stubbornly following
procedures helped stop the virus in the first round, now speed and flexibilityare vital. There are some encouraging signs: under the soft lockdown the
number of new cases has started to fall in the past two days. The government
has also dropped its opposition to companies conducting rapid screening of
their workforces, a step that will allow much more broad-based testing.

台北現在需要不同的技能組合。雖然嚴格和頑強地遵循程序有助於
在第一輪阻止病毒，但現在速度和靈活性至關重要。現在已出現一
些令人鼓舞的跡象：在軟封城下，過去兩天新案例數量開始下降。
政府也不再反對企業對員工進行快速篩檢──此舉將會容許進行更
廣泛的篩檢。

But there is a long road ahead. Su said: “I worry that we have only seen the
tip of the iceberg.”

但前面還有很長的路要走。蘇表示，「我擔心我們現在只看到
冰山一角。」

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