關於 surge into中文 ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

剛剛運動的時候邊聽BBC Podcast，突然聽到台灣公司買疫苗的關鍵字，沒想到仔細一聽報導差點沒吐血。BBC竟然報導台灣政府為了"保住顏面"，"不願意"購買BNT疫苗。但卻隻字不提台灣所面臨來自中國的巨大外交及軍事威脅。

BBC News 中文（繁體）這麼偏頗可以嗎?
如果要報導中台關係 與其武斷下結論 希望這位記者有機會來台灣了解

BBC News, Taiwan is facing serious military and diplomatic threats from the Chinese government. How can you jump to the conclusion that the government is “RELUCTANT to purchase vaccines” in order to “SAVE FACE”. Isn't your report too biased?

影片是兩個片段合在一起

--以下為原文逐字稿--

Two Taiwnese firms have taken matters into their own hands to buy a large consignment of Pfizer Biontech Covid jabs after the government was reluctant to purchase the medicine because it’s being distributed by a company based in mainland China.

Asia Pacific editor Michael: “Taiwan and China are currently locked in this bitter diplomatic dispute over the future status of Taiwan. China wants it to be part of China. Taiwan thinks it should be independent. That’s the background. So in Taiwan over recent months there’s been a surge of Covid cases, and the Taiwanese government has been desperate to get hold of vaccines. It got AZ, got Moderna. It hasn’t been able to get the Pfizer Biontech. That’s because in that region, in East Asia, it’s been distributed by a Chinese company. Taiwanese government was unwilling because of those reasons I just mentioned to deal directly with a Chinese company. So what’s happened is these two Taiwanese firms stepped in: they bought 10 million doses of Pfizer Biontech vaccines from this Chinese company and they are going to hand it over to Taiwan. They spent 350 million dollars. In effect, these companies have acted as intermediate just so that the Taiwanese government can save face not to deal directly with this Chinese company.

今早為Asian Medical Students Association Hong Kong (AMSAHK)的新一屆執行委員會就職典禮作致詞分享嘉賓，題目為「疫情中的健康不公平」。
感謝他們的熱情款待以及為整段致詞拍了影片。以下我附上致詞的英文原稿：

It's been my honor to be invited to give the closing remarks for the Inauguration Ceremony for the incoming executive committee of the Asian Medical Students' Association Hong Kong (AMSAHK) this morning. A video has been taken for the remarks I made regarding health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic (big thanks to the student who withstood the soreness of her arm for holding the camera up for 15 minutes straight), and here's the transcript of the main body of the speech that goes with this video:

//The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, continues to be rampant around the world since early 2020, resulting in more than 55 million cases and 1.3 million deaths worldwide as of today. (So no! It’s not a hoax for those conspiracy theorists out there!) A higher rate of incidence and deaths, as well as worse health-related quality of life have been widely observed in the socially disadvantaged groups, including people of lower socioeconomic position, older persons, migrants, ethnic minority and communities of color, etc. While epidemiologists and scientists around the world are dedicated in gathering scientific evidence on the specific causes and determinants of the health inequalities observed in different countries and regions, we can apply the Social Determinants of Health Conceptual Framework developed by the World Health Organization team led by the eminent Prof Sir Michael Marmot, world’s leading social epidemiologist, to understand and delineate these social determinants of health inequalities related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to this framework, social determinants of health can be largely categorized into two types – 1) the lower stream, intermediary determinants, and 2) the upper stream, structural and macro-environmental determinants. For the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that the lower stream factors may include material circumstances, such as people’s living and working conditions. For instance, the nature of the occupations of these people of lower socioeconomic position tends to require them to travel outside to work, i.e., they cannot work from home, which is a luxury for people who can afford to do it. This lack of choice in the location of occupation may expose them to greater risk of infection through more transportation and interactions with strangers. We have also seen infection clusters among crowded places like elderly homes, public housing estates, and boarding houses for foreign domestic helpers. Moreover, these socially disadvantaged people tend to have lower financial and social capital – it can be observed that they were more likely to be deprived of personal protective equipment like face masks and hand sanitizers, especially during the earlier days of the pandemic. On the other hand, the upper stream, structural determinants of health may include policies related to public health, education, macroeconomics, social protection and welfare, as well as our governance… and last, but not least, our culture and values. If the socioeconomic and political contexts are not favorable to the socially disadvantaged, their health and well-being will be disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Therefore, if we, as a society, espouse to address and reduce the problem of health inequalities, social determinants of health cannot be overlooked in devising and designing any public health-related strategies, measures and policies.

Although a higher rate of incidence and deaths have been widely observed in the socially disadvantaged groups, especially in countries with severe COVID-19 outbreaks, this phenomenon seems to be less discussed and less covered by media in Hong Kong, where the disease incidence is relatively low when compared with other countries around the world. Before the resurgence of local cases in early July, local spread of COVID-19 was sporadic and most cases were imported. In the earlier days of the pandemic, most cases were primarily imported by travelers and return-students studying overseas, leading to a minor surge between mid-March and mid-April of 874 new cases. Most of these cases during Spring were people who could afford to travel and study abroad, and thus tended to be more well-off. Therefore, some would say the expected social gradient in health impact did not seem to exist in Hong Kong, but may I remind you that, it is only the case when we focus on COVID-19-specific incidence and mortality alone. But can we really deduce from this that COVID-19-related health inequality does not exist in Hong Kong? According to the Social Determinants of Health Framework mentioned earlier, the obvious answer is “No, of course not.” And here’s why…

In addition to the direct disease burden, the COVID-19 outbreak and its associated containment measures (such as economic lockdown, mandatory social distancing, and change of work arrangements) could have unequal wider socioeconomic impacts on the general population, especially in regions with pervasive existing social inequalities. Given the limited resources and capacity of the socioeconomically disadvantaged to respond to emergency and adverse events, their general health and well-being are likely to be unduly and inordinately affected by the abrupt changes in their daily economic and social conditions, like job loss and insecurity, brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak and the corresponding containment and mitigation measures of which the main purpose was supposedly disease prevention and health protection at the first place. As such, focusing only on COVID-19 incidence or mortality as the outcomes of concern to address health inequalities may leave out important aspects of life that contributes significantly to people’s health. Recently, my research team and I collaborated with Sir Michael Marmot in a Hong Kong study, and found that the poor people in Hong Kong fared worse in every aspects of life than their richer counterparts in terms of economic activity, personal protective equipment, personal hygiene practice, as well as well-being and health after the COVID-19 outbreak. We also found that part of the observed health inequality can be attributed to the pandemic and its related containment measures via people’s concerns over their own and their families’ livelihood and economic activity. In other words, health inequalities were contributed by the pandemic even in a city where incidence is relatively low through other social determinants of health that directly concerned the livelihood and economic activity of the people. So in this study, we confirmed that focusing only on the incident and death cases as the outcomes of concern to address health inequalities is like a story half-told, and would severely truncate and distort the reality.

Truth be told, health inequality does not only appear after the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, it is a pre-existing condition in countries and regions around the world, including Hong Kong. My research over the years have consistently shown that people in lower socioeconomic position tend to have worse physical and mental health status. Nevertheless, precisely because health inequality is nothing new, there are always voices in our society trying to dismiss the problem, arguing that it is only natural to have wealth inequality in any capitalistic society. However, in reckoning with health inequalities, we need to go beyond just figuring out the disparities or differences in health status between the poor and the rich, and we need to raise an ethically relevant question: are these inequalities, disparities and differences remediable? Can they be fixed? Can we do something about them? If they are remediable, and we can do something about them but we haven’t, then we’d say these inequalities are ultimately unjust and unfair. In other words, a society that prides itself in pursuing justice must, and I say must, strive to address and reduce these unfair health inequalities. Borrowing the words from famed sociologist Judith Butler, “the virus alone does not discriminate,” but “social and economic inequality will make sure that it does.” With COVID-19, we learn that it is not only the individuals who are sick, but our society. And it’s time we do something about it.

Thank you very much!//

Please join me in congratulating the incoming executive committee of AMSAHK and giving them the best wishes for their future endeavor!

Roger Chung, PhD
Assistant Professor, CUHK JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, @CUHK Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學 - CUHK
Associate Director, CUHK Institute of Health Equity

10/26

* 英國廣播公司BBC聯繫到3名越南人的家屬，他們擔心他們的親屬可能在英國發現有39具移民屍體的貨櫃拖車上。

26歲的Pham Tra My的親屬在周二（10月22日）晚上收到了她發來的短信，說她正感到窒息。

這名女子可能是在她最後時刻發給她母親短信中寫道，她無法呼吸，她很抱歉。
Pham Tra My的家人說，他們在拼命尋找有關資訊，設法證實他們的女兒是否在39名死者之中。

從那以後，他們一直無法聯繫上她。他們要求BBC把她的細節轉交給英國警方。
他們為Pham Tra My偷渡到英國支付了共3萬英鎊。

這位女子的家人說，她在渡海前往英國之前關掉了手機。之後，他們就再沒能聯繫上她。

上述家庭說，人口販子已經把錢還給了這家人。

另外兩名越南人也與BBC聯繫尋找失聯的親人。他們的親屬分別是一位26歲的男子和一位19歲的女子。

還有一些親屬表示，20歲的Nguyen Dinh Luong也可能是遇難者之一。

Essex lorry deaths: Vietnamese families fear relatives among dead https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50185788

* 倫敦附近一輛貨車貨車的冷凍貨櫃裏發現39具屍體。警方仍在調查死者身份。
BBC找到一位曾經藏在貨櫃貨車裏，偷渡到英國的敘利亞難民。他回憶那段經歷。

https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/world-50169442

* 美國副總統潘斯當地時間周四第二次就美中關係發表演講，外界隨即把他說的話跟去年的演講比較，普遍認為潘斯今年的講法較溫和，但仍然引起中國官方媒體批評。

潘斯此次演說提到了許多美中當下的糾紛，包括兩國貿易談判、香港示威浪潮等，他特別提到NBA在中國被封殺的事件，點名批評NBA與事發後撤去火箭隊相關商品的耐克公司。

潘斯去年10月也發表演說講述美國對中政策，當時他的態度強硬，批評中國嘗試干預美國內政，聲言美國「不會低頭」。分析家當時形容，潘斯的演說可能象徵著中美「新冷戰」的開端。

中外專家分別留意到，潘斯今年講話內容同時強調與中國合作，內容比較溫和，但中國官方媒體評論時仍認為，從這次演說中可以看出潘斯「個人」對中國的「嚴重偏見」。

https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/world-50180155

*加州野火，威脅電力供應系統百萬人面對停電。美國加州野火肆虐，洛杉磯北部週四下午的大火迅速吞噬了2000多公頃土地，5萬人緊急疏散。加州北部的酒鄉已有2000人被令疏散，當局已切斷北部地區18萬客戶的電力供應。 未來可能百萬人，面臨停止電力供應。Millions of Californians face having their power cut as firefighters continue to battle a surge in wildfires in the state.

California wildfires: Millions warned of possible power cut https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50191237

* 伊拉克反政府示威，至少四十人死亡，當地抗議愈來愈趨近暴力。At least 40 people have died in Iraq during a fresh wave of anti-government protests that descended into violence.

Iraq protests: 40 dead as mass unrest descends into violence https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50181212

* 智利、西班牙等全球多地相繼爆發大規模示威，不免讓人與香港形勢比較；英國脫歐形勢不斷變化，關鍵日期也一變再變；而泰國貴妃被廢的新聞也引起我們讀者的極大興趣。

剛剛過去的一周，BBC中文網以下新聞內容受到讀者的關注。如果你錯過了它們，BBC中文帶你一一回顧。

https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-50182325