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Finance & economics
财经板块
China’s economy: Delta neutral
中国的经济：德尔塔中性
The battle against covid-19 is compounding an economic slowdown—and feeding global supply disruptions
抗击新冠肺炎的斗争加剧了经济放缓，并导致全球供应中断
TRADE HAS flowed through the port of Ningbo on China’s east coast since the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century. After the first opium war ended in 1842, it was one of five points of entry forcibly opened to foreign merchants. And in the first half of this year the port (which merged with the nearby Zhoushan port in 2015) handled more tonnes of cargo than anywhere else in the world. A tour group of 80 students recently spent three days admiring the free-trade zone and the port’s “hardcore” power, as Ningbo city government put it.
自8世纪的唐朝以来，中国东部沿海地区的宁波港就一直有贸易往来。1842年第一次鸦片战争结束后，它是被迫向外国商人开放的五个入境点之一。今年上半年，这个港口(2015年与邻近的舟山港合并)的货物吞吐量位居全球第一。最近，一个由80名学生组成的旅行团花了三天时间来欣赏这个自由贸易区以及宁波市政府所说的该港口的“核心”力量。
But on August 11th activity at one of the port’s busiest terminals came to an abrupt halt. A 34-year-old dockworker, who had come into contact with visiting crews, was diagnosed with the Delta variant of covid-19 despite having received two shots of the Sinovac vaccine. That solitary infection was all it took for the government to shut down operations and consign 254 of his close contacts (and a further 396 of their contacts) to quarantine.
但是在8月11日，港口最繁忙的一个码头的活动突然停止了。一名34岁的码头工人，曾与外来船员有过接触，尽管他注射了两针科兴疫苗，但仍被诊断出感染了新冠病毒的德尔塔变异毒株。这一病例让政府关闭了港口的业务，并对该员工的254名密切接触者(以及另外396名间接密切接触者)进行了隔离。
The case is revealing in three ways. It illustrates once more how hard it is to keep the Delta variant at bay. It demonstrates how hard China will, yet again, nonetheless try to do just that. And it shows how widely around the world this struggle will be felt. The terminal shutdown follows a similar closure at Yantian port on China’s south coast in May (as well as disruptions wrought by last month’s typhoon In-Fa). It now takes about 70 days for ocean freight to travel from its point of origin in China to its final destination in America, compared with 47 last August, according to Freightos, a digital freight marketplace. Some experts worry that the shipping delays and the prospect of future shutdowns may even disrupt the West’s Christmas shopping.
这个病例给我们带来了三点启示。它再次说明了防控德尔塔变异毒株的困难程度。它也表明，尽管很难，中国仍将再次努力实现这个目标。它还说明，全世界都将对这种斗争感同身受。今年5月，中国南部沿海的盐田港也曾出现过类似的封港现象(上个月台风“烟花”再次导致该港关闭)。数字货运市场Freightos的数据显示，现在从中国的出发地到美国的最终目的地的海运大约需要70天，而去年8月只需要47天。一些专家担心，运输延误和未来可能出现的关闭甚至可能扰乱西方国家的圣诞节购物。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
