经济学人财经 || 疫苗经济学

原文:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzU1MDQwNTgzMg==&mid=2247491358&idx=1&sn=4c77138664801bce816d67d538cc8fc7&chksm=fba04cb9ccd7c5af738a1666984dec9e70232b6bd9449d546ba302643fbac3e31ea88e96a414#rd

1


导读


感谢思维导图作者

May Li,男,我要去追逐心中的太阳,还要继续努力的亚古兽


2


听力|精读|翻译|词组

Vaccine economics

疫苗经济学

英文部分选自经济学人20200808期财经版块

Finance and economics

金融和经济


Vaccine economics

疫苗经济学


More hard questions

更多棘手的问题


As scientists race to develop covid-19 vaccines, governments must work out how much to spend on them, and how best to distribute the goods

科学家竞相研制新冠疫苗的同时,政府必须弄清楚要花多少钱在疫苗上,以及分配疫苗的最好办法


Slowly but surely the economic costs of the covid-19 pandemic are becoming clear. On July 30th America’s statisticians revealed that the economy shrank by 9.5%, year on year, in the second quarter. Output in the euro zone fell even farther. Even South Korea, which has managed the virus better than almost any other country, has not escaped a deep recession.


新冠疫情带来的经济代价逐渐明朗。今年730日,美国统计学家公布第二季度经济数据,同比下降9.5%。欧元区的产值降幅更大。尽管韩国的抗疫工作远好过于大多数国家,但也难逃一轮严重的经济衰退。


A vaccine would help end the economic chaos. Scientists and pharmaceutical companies have stepped up to the task. More than 150 vaccines are being developed worldwide, with six in final, large-scale clinical trials. The public-health and economic costs of the pandemic are such that, even as scientists beaver away, policymakers must grapple with two questions: how much to spend on vaccines, in order to ensure enough are made, and how to ensure they are distributed fairly.


疫苗或许能结束这场经济混乱。科学家和制药公司已在加紧完成任务,目前全球正在研发的疫苗超过150种,其中6支已进入最后大规模临床试验阶段。这场疫情带来的公共卫生和经济成本都如此之高,当科学家都在卖力工作时,政策制定者必须设法解决两个问题:在疫苗上花多少钱才能生产足量疫苗,以及怎样保证疫苗的公平分配。


Governments so far have invested more than $10bn in covid-19 vaccines, and made forward purchases of about 4bn doses (though data on deals are murky). As the vaccines may require a course of two doses, in theory this amount could inoculate the world’s most vulnerable people. In fact, effectiveness is far from assured, so a large share of purchases could turn out to be duds. A typical vaccine in final trials has a 20% chance of failure. Some of the candidate covid-19 vaccines involve novel technologies, so the risk of failure could be higher. That explains why rich countries are backing several efforts, with deals being signed every few days (see chart 1).


截至目前,各国政府已经在新冠疫苗上投资了100多亿美元,并提前签订了大约40亿剂的采购合约(尽管交易数据还不明确)。由于一个疗程可能需要两支疫苗剂量,理论上按该计量接种疫苗数量能覆盖世界最弱势群体。但事实上,疫苗的有效性无法保证,所以很大一部分可能会变成废品。一支常规疫苗在最后临床阶段的失败率为20%。一些候选的新冠疫苗涉及到新技术,因此失败的风险可能更高。这解释了为什么富裕国家同时支持几个制药厂,每隔几天就签署新采购订单。(见表1)。


Despite the scramble in America and Europe to get to the front of the queue, countries elsewhere are likely to be under-supplied, and for some time. Japan has arranged to buy enough for just one dose per person, according to Goldman Sachs, a bank (see chart 2). On average, emerging markets have secured enough to cover less than a third of their citizens.


欧美国家拼命争取疫苗优先采购权,但其他很多国家还有可能在一段时间内面临供应不足。高盛银行称,日本计划购买每人仅一剂的疫苗量(见图2)。平均而言,新兴市场国家能保障的剂量仅能覆盖不到三分之一的公民。


GAVI, an alliance that funds vaccines for poor countries, has set up covax, a purchasing pool for several late-stage vaccine candidates. It promises participants doses of an effective vaccine for up to 20% of their population by the end of 2021, with rich countries paying for their supplies and funding a kitty for poor ones. About 80 high- and middle-income countries have said they want to join. But it remains to be seen how many put money on the table: they must pay for the first 15% of their vaccines by the end of the month.


全球疫苗免疫联盟(GAVI)是一个旨在为贫穷国家提供疫苗支持的组织,它建立了支持新冠疫苗供应计划(COVAX),用于采购处于后期研究阶段的候选疫苗。该联盟承诺成员国,截止2021年底,可以为其多达20%的人口接种有效的疫苗。富裕国家出资提供疫苗,并为贫穷国家筹集一笔资金。大约80个高、中收入国家已经表示愿意加入。但是最终有多少国家愿意出资尚不明确,他们必须在月底前支付15%的疫苗费用。


注:

Kitty: n. 凑集的一笔钱;小猫。


Even meeting the commitments they have already made will be a stretch for pharma companies, much less producing enough for the world. Existing manufacturing facilities can be repurposed for some types of jabs. For others, however, new ones must be built. These can cost about half a billion dollars apiece, and typically take three years to get up and running.


即便是履行已做出的承诺量,这对于制药公司来说已经是一个负担,更不用提为全世界生产足量疫苗。现有的生产设备可以改装后生产一些类型的疫苗。但是对于其他类型,则需要创建新设备。每台机器将大约花费5亿美元,而且通常需要3年时间才能完成和投产。


A company normally sets up production once a vaccine wins regulatory approval. But these are not normal times. To speed things up, some firms have started mass-producing vaccines that are still in clinical trials. Companies may have promised 4bn doses, but some of their vaccines may not pass trials and will have to be poured away. Many experts think supply will also be constrained by global shortages of things like vials and syringes. They put a more realistic estimate of global supply by the end of next year at nearer 2bn.


公司通常需在疫苗获得监管批准后才能开始生产。但现在是非常时期,为了加速进展,一些公司在疫苗仍处于临床试验阶段就已开始量产。公司或许承诺了生产40亿剂量,但一些疫苗或因未能通过试验而被废弃。许多专家认为一些物品的全球短缺也会影响供应,例如药水瓶和注射器。专家给出了一个更为合理的预测:到明年年底全球供应量近20亿剂量。


As that is nowhere near enough to cover the world, it is easy to imagine fights breaking out once effective vaccines become available. The experience of past pandemics is hardly encouraging on this front. During the h1n1 (swine flu) pandemic in 2009-10 rich countries cornered supplies of the vaccine to fight the disease. Only when they had more than they needed did they offer some of it to poor countries. By then, the disease had swept across the planet and the pandemic was over.


20亿远不能覆盖全球需求量。可想而知,一旦有效疫苗可供使用,将会爆发冲突。过去流行病的经验也很难鼓舞人心。在2009-10年的H1N1(猪流感)流行期间,富裕国家通过垄断疫苗的供应来抵御病毒。只有当供过于求时,他们才将一些疫苗提供给了贫困国家。但那时流感早已席卷全球,流行病也已宣告结束。


Early in the covid-19 pandemic, too, global co-operation quickly broke down. By late April, 80 jurisdictions had restricted exports, with governments especially keen to hoard supplies of disinfectants, personal protective equipment and thermometers. Some countries even seized shipments passing through their territory.


在新冠病毒早期阶段,全球合作也很快地瓦解了。截至4月末,80个管辖区域限制出口,政府尤其热衷于囤积消毒剂、个人防护用品和温度计等物资。一些国家甚至扣押途径领土的货物。


Fearful of a repeat of such marauding, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, an alliance of charities and governments that has funded the early development of some of the most promising covid-19 vaccines, has organised manufacturing on several continents. So have some pharma companies.


因为害怕再次出现这样的劫掠,一家慈善组织和政府联盟——流行病防范创新联盟已经组织疫苗在多个洲进行生产。该联盟还早在一些最有望成功的新冠疫苗早期研发阶段便提供了资助。其他一些制药公司同样开始在多个洲进行生产。


The World Health Organisation (WHO) is also trying to avert vaccine politics. It has drawn up guidelines for how early supplies should be distributed in order to save the most lives, protect fragile health systems and hasten the end of the pandemic. The first doses would go to health and social-care workers, and the next batch to the 20% of people in each country who are most likely to die from covid-19 if infected. The rest would then go to places with the highest risk of outbreaks. Covax has signed up to these principles, but there is no indication that countries would respect them in their bilateral deals with drug companies, rather than act in narrow self-interest.


世界卫生组织(WHO)也在努力避免疫苗政治。制定了如何尽早分配疫苗的指导方针,以尽力挽救生命,保护脆弱的医疗系统,并加速这一流行病的结束。第一批疫苗将提供给医护人员和社会保障工作者,下一批将提供给各国最有可能死于新冠的20% 的人群。剩下的疫苗将会被送往最高危的病毒爆发区。Covax已经签署了指导方针,但没有迹象表明,各国会在与制药公司的双边协议中尊重这些原则,摒弃狭隘的自身利益。


There are slim hopes that America, China or Russia, among others, will allow exports of a vaccine made on their territory before enough is available for all of their citizens. But vaccine manufacturing and distribution involves a complicated global supply chain of raw ingredients, adjuvants (chemicals commonly used to boost potency), vials and so on. In the worst case, countries denied a share of the vaccines could ban exports of such inputs to the hoarding country. Everyone loses.


美国、中国或俄罗斯等国在本国公民获得足够疫苗之前,允许出口本国制造疫苗的希望渺茫。但是疫苗的生产和分销涉及复杂的全球供应链,包括原材料、佐剂(通常用于提高效力的化学物质)、小瓶等等。在最坏的情况下,未获得疫苗的国家可能会禁止向囤积疫苗的国家出口这些产品。这种情况下,每个人都是输家。


注:

Hoarding:贮藏;囤积;(尤指)秘藏


A global free-for-all, then, seems inevitable. One way to mitigate this would be to spend more. Some economists argue that governments could do more to hurry along vaccine manufacture and distribution. Separate groups of researchers reckon that the world needs to invest around $100bn in order to make several vaccines early and in sufficient quantities. That would be a ten-fold increase in what has been spent. But set against the output lost and the $7trn in stimulus injected into the global economy so far, it is peanuts. 


那么,全球范围内的混战似乎无法避免。缓解这种情况的一个方法就是增加开支。一些经济学家认为,政府可以采取更多措施加快疫苗的生产和分发。不同的研究小组估计,全世界需要投资大约1000亿美元,才能及早生产出足够数量的几种疫苗。那将是现有投入基础上再增加十倍。但与产出损失和迄今为止向全球经济注入的7万亿美元刺激计划相比,简直小巫见大巫。


注:

1.free-for-all:单数名词可自由参加的活动;众人同时争抢的情形:A free-for-all is a situation in which several people or groups are trying to get something for themselves and there are no controls on how they do it.

2.Peanuts(informal) a very small amount of money;很少的钱


翻译组:

Ellie,女,金融硕士,经济学人粉丝

Alex,女,小研究员一枚,经济学人粉丝

Chao,男,爱读书思考的DPhil CandidateTE粉丝

Brittany,女,会计金融美本,行业分析师,爱经济学人


校对组:

Chloe,女,翻译硕士,经济学人忠实读者

Emily,女,食物链底端金融民工,经济学人粉丝


3


观点|评论|思考


本次感想

Alan,男,金融工程硕士,经济学人粉丝

研制出可以可供全球使用的新冠疫苗恐怕需要等到2021年,这意味着寄希望于研制出的疫苗来应对COVID-19恐怕是远水解不了近渴的。因为各国领导人都将应对COVID-19视为必须要证明自己的考试,而国内反对者会以此作为攻击当前执政者的重要政治议题,所以因疫苗研发后,该国所生产疫苗必然会优先派发给该国民众,没有人敢于承担被扣叛国的罪名。即使受到外国政治压力施压,该国领导人会在确保自身民意安全的情况下适当妥协于外部压力。

虽然COVID-19造成了各国经济衰退,但也催生了相关药品尤其口罩、疫苗研发、临床卫生等方面的需求。同时各国央行的显著增加流动性的方式,其实打破了COVID-19之前秉承的一贯货币政策思路,例如中国偏紧的货币政策和美国加息通道结束后的观望式货币政策。突然放松的货币政策改变了市场对于未来货币政策的预期,随后主流偏见”+“基本趋势在疫情泛滥和央行大水放闸的混乱期间逐步形成,因为央行的目标在COVID-19爆发之后转变为尽可能保住市场主体以赢得未来,且适度宽松的货币政策预计在今年退出还为时尚早,且当前受困于未来中美贸易和美国政治大选的不确定性,于是市场主流预期当前A股徘徊在3300左右,3500为阻力线。如果反复震荡后突破了原来的阻力,那么它将有余量的动力继续向上滑动;而如果不能突破,将有新的主流偏见形成。


4


愿景


打造

独立思考 | 国际视野 | 英文学习

小组

现有经济学人讨论群一个,如果您也有兴趣,可联系小编WeChat : Education0603。由于每天加小编人很多,为提高效率,大家添加小编,暗号“TE讨论群", 通过后,请做好以下三点,否则不回复,谢谢理解。

1.转发译文到100人以上英语学习群或者朋友圈

2.回答三个问题(在公众号后台回复群规,请务必仔细阅读群规以及出现的三个问题)

3.加小编后做个简单的自我介绍,谢谢大家。