The picture shows the world’s first 3D printed concrete bridge in the Netherlands. Image source: Scientific American monthly magazine official website

The picture shows the future blueprint of 3D printed buildings. Image source: Mega.online

Rendering of the world’s first 3D printing school in Madagascar. Image source: World Economic Forum official website

　　Today viewpoint

　　Bridges are common in Holland, which is famous for its canals. But there are four bridges that are particularly strange: each one is 26 feet long, and they are all made of concrete by a large 3D printer. The bridge built in this way is the first in the world, and it was born on October 17th, 2017 in the southern Dutch town of Gemert.

　　From the desktop to the construction site, 3D printing, as a part of the technological revolution, has achieved the goal of extruding plastics and other materials into solid objects. Since 2017, several companies in the United States, Europe and Asia have "printed" bus stops, bus shelters and conference hall partitions, and even entire houses.

　　In the future, the application of 3D printing is not limited to the construction industry. In the fields of education, disaster relief and medical care, the concept of technology benefiting mankind will be fully reflected in 3D printing.

　　3D printing, the "all-rounder" of the construction industry

　　3D building printers work much like inkjet printers in home offices, except that they spit out concrete instead of ink.

　　The nozzle runs back and forth on the track, and the extrusion mode is controlled by the computer, so that an inch thick layer of concrete (or steel, or other materials) can be accurately laid where needed. When the slowly moving nozzle reaches the end of its path (up to 100 feet), this layer is usually hardened, just enough to put another layer on top of the first layer. Layer after layer, a wall needed by the family was built. Through accurate deposition patterns, nozzles can also leave space for windows, doors, utility pipes and other designs and structures.

　　Scientific American reported that one of the most obvious advantages of 3D printing architecture is its high speed. It takes about 24 hours to print a 500-square-foot single-story house.

　　Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of ICON, a company in Texas, USA, said: "When building a house, 3D printers will consider its structure, insulation, wallboard, internal and external surface treatment and piping system." In general, "it usually takes 20 people representing five or six different industries to work for several days".

　　In addition, 3D printed buildings also reduce waste.

　　It is reported that a typical residential construction site will produce about 4 tons of garbage. Because the concrete used in conventional floor construction is uniformly applied, it will be wasted by about half whether it needs structural support in a specific area or not. This is particularly damaging to the environment, because cement, as the main component of concrete, accounts for about 7% of our carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast, 3D printers can change the thickness of the structure very accurately, and only use concrete where it is really needed. This process is called topology optimization.

　　Digitization of the printed structure is another advantage of 3D printing. This means that the design presented on the computer can be directly converted into the instructions of the printer. This eliminates the need to convert the design into drawings, thus reducing unnecessary mistakes and troubles, thus saving costs and reducing delays.

　　Digitalization has an additional benefit, that is, it eliminates the obstacles to design creativity. Architects can provide customized or semi-customized designs at a lower cost without bothering to train others to implement the plan.

　　"The printer doesn’t care what design you come up with." Theo Salete, a structural engineer at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, said that he was a pioneer in printing architecture and built the Amsterdam Bridge in the Netherlands. "It won’t charge you more for your originality.".

　　Technology is still in its early stages.

　　Of course, Scientific American reported that the technology of 3D printing building is still in the early stage. To expand the scale of 3D printing building, more work needs to be done in technology and supervision. For the former, practitioners have not found an effective method to reinforce concrete from the printing press. In traditional buildings, this is done by laying steel bars.

　　Salete believes that the biggest vision for 3D printing architecture is to have new concrete formula or new extrudable materials in the future, which are strong enough without steel bars. For example, epoxy resin is a potential candidate. It is a polymer that is currently used to make adhesives and coatings in buildings.

　　Guidelines and construction procedure rules for quality inspection of 3D printed houses also need to be finalized. Salete warned that if inexperienced and careless builders come into contact with printers, their buildings may be in danger of collapse.

　　Nowadays, 3D printing architecture is an "insignificant event", which is low-key and low-cost.

　　For example, ICON printed a house in Austin, Texas, USA, which was designed for families and cost $10,000. Then, the company also plans to bring a printer to Latin America and build 50 low-cost houses there.

　　At the same time, Salete is about to start building a 90-foot-high bridge in Amsterdam, and will also cooperate with others to build several houses in the Netherlands.

　　Scientific American reported that although this technology is still in its early stage, commercial 3D printing construction machines may fundamentally change the construction industry in the next decade. Experts believe that they can shorten the construction time by half, reduce the cost by as much as one third, and provide more environmentally friendly and sturdy designs, as well as more customization space.

　　According to the data of Polaris Market Research Company, with the development of this technology, it is estimated that by 2026, the global 3D printing construction market will expand from 4.6 million US dollars in 2019 to 14.9 billion US dollars.

　　Education, disaster relief and medical care … … 3D printing can be expected in the future.

　　Official website, the World Economic Forum, reported on February 19th that Think Huts, a non-profit organization, cooperated with Studio Mortazavi, an architectural design company, to establish the world’s first 3D printing school on the campus of Fianarantsoa University.

　　Through the 3D printing school solution, more children are provided with educational opportunities, which solves the problem of insufficient investment in physical infrastructure.

　　The benefits of science and technology are reflected in the 3D printing technology. In addition to the construction industry, it is reported that 3D printers will be increasingly used in all walks of life, from the production of consumer goods such as sunglasses to industrial products such as auto parts. In the education industry, 3D modeling can be used to bring educational ideas into life and help children develop practical skills, such as programming.

　　In Mexico, 3D printing has built a 46-square-meter house in Tabasco State, including kitchen, living room, bathroom and two bedrooms, which will be open to some of the poorest families in the state.

　　This technology has also proved to be crucial in disaster relief. According to the British "Guardian" report, when an earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, as part of the rescue work, a 3D printer installed on Land Rover was used to help repair Nepal’s water pipes.

　　In addition, 3D printing has also been successfully applied in the medical field. In Italy, when a hospital in Lombardy, the hardest hit area of COVID-19, was in short supply, the startup Issinova printed 3D ventilator valves for COVID-19 patients.

　　Xinhua News Agency, Washington, February 6 (Reporter Xiong Maoling, Hu Yousong) Thomas Hoelbling, deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency a few days ago that with the optimization and adjustment of China’s epidemic prevention policy, China’s personal consumption has further recovered and its confidence in economic growth is increasing.China’s current economic resilience lies in its high household savings rate, macro-policy boost and strong development momentum.

　　In the update of the World Economic Outlook Report released by the IMF on January 30th, the forecast of China’s economic growth this year was greatly raised to 5.2%, which was 0.8 percentage points higher than the forecast in October last year. IMF predicts that China’s economy will continue to grow by 4.5% next year.

　　Hoelbling said that in the past three years,Compared with investment, export and other fields, China’s personal consumption has been greatly affected, benefiting from the optimization and adjustment of epidemic prevention policies to the greatest extent..This is especially reflected in the service field, such as the obvious increase in the number of tourists during the Spring Festival. At the same time, due to the slight improvement in the global economic environment and the accumulation of household savings in China,It is expected that the consumption of consumers in China will greatly increase.

　　In Zhaoguang Farm Co., Ltd., Bei ‘an Branch of Beidahuang Agricultural Reclamation Group Co., Ltd., workers are busy on a soybean pile in threshing ground (photo taken on October 20, 2022). Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Jianwei photo

　　Hoelbling believes that,Current data have shown that consumer confidence in China has increased and consumption has recovered.. The population movement in the second half of December last year and the first three weeks of January this year was stronger than expected by the IMF, and the increase in liquidity is one of the prerequisites for the increase in consumption and one of the signs of increased confidence.

　　Hoelbling said,China’s economic resilience is reflected in three aspects.First, the high level of savings at the family level can play a buffering role; Second, the government has room for policy adjustment in order to respond under different circumstances; Third, the potential economic growth rate is high, and the overall economic development momentum is strong.

　　The update of IMF’s World Economic Outlook Report raised the global economic growth forecast this year from 2.7% in October last year to 2.9%. Among the major economies, the economic growth rate of the United States is expected to be 1.4% and 1% this year and next, and the growth rate of the euro zone is expected to be 0.7% and 1.6% respectively.

　　Hoelbling pointed out that,China’s stronger economic growth this year and next will contribute to the global economic recovery., especially in the service industry. Compared with the past two years, the improvement of global tourism and aviation industry will be the biggest change in the short term.

　　Tourists watch circus performances in Guangzhou Changlong Tourist Resort (photo taken on December 31, 2022). Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Dawei photo

　　Hoelbling said that increased consumption is expected to become an important source of economic growth in China, and the current economic recovery is in line with the long-term balanced development trend of China’s economy.

　　Hoelbling believes that looking at the medium and long-term development prospects of China’s economy, accelerating structural reform, further opening up the market and promoting innovation will help to meet the challenges such as demographic trends and further enhance the potential economic growth rate. (Editor: Wang Pei, Cui Shiyu (intern); Editor: Wang Kewen, Diao Ze, He Ying, Du Jing, Xu Chao, Deng Qian)

　　Produced by Xinhua News Agency International Department

　　Produced by Xinhua News Agency’s International Communication Integration Platform

　　Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the United States has been the country with the largest number of confirmed cases and deaths in the world for quite a long time. After experiencing the "dark moment" in January this year, the United States has ushered in the fourth wave of epidemic since mid-July. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of the 14th EDT, there were more than 41 million confirmed cases and more than 660,000 deaths in the United States.

　　Why does the United States have world-class medical resources, but it has encountered the "Waterloo" against the epidemic? Since last year, many institutions have resumed their efforts to reflect on the mistakes of the US anti-epidemic strategy. To sum up, from the release of epidemic information, the implementation of epidemic prevention measures, the treatment of patients, the statistics of epidemic data, and the distribution of vaccines and other medical materials, the United States has been in chaos in every link of epidemic response, which not only caused the virus to wreak havoc in its own territory, but also brought great damage and challenges to the overall situation of global epidemic prevention.

　　The "root cause" behind these phenomena is the deep-seated defect of American political system and values.

　　One of the "root causes": the party strives for greatness.

　　In the United States with a two-party system, some politicians always put party interests above people’s lives, health and safety. The COVID-19 epidemic has become a "weapon" for the two parties to attack each other, and the "power game" between politicians has brought great damage to the fight against the epidemic.

　　As early as the beginning of January, 2020, the National Security Council of the United States has received an alarm, predicting that the COVID-19 epidemic will occur in the United States and may develop into a "global pandemic". However, in order to keep the economic and employment figures "good-looking" and win the support rate, the Republican government at that time deliberately played down the epidemic warning, restricted medical experts from releasing information to the public, and even misled the public by publishing false information, saying that COVID-19 was a "pandemic flu", and the risk and mortality rate of virus infection were "very low", which led to the "golden window period" of epidemic prevention and control being wasted.

　　The Democratic Party is just a drop in the bucket, and some Democratic Party officials spend more energy on "bickering" than on fighting the epidemic. Cuomo, the former governor of New York, who was forced to resign due to a sex scandal not long ago, severely accused the federal government of inaction at the beginning of the epidemic, and his support rate soared. However, according to a survey released by the Attorney General of New York State in January this year, Cuomo’s own report greatly reduced the death toll of COVID-19, a nursing home in the state.

　　The anti-epidemic policy has also become a "bargaining chip" for party struggle. Politicians of the two parties frequently engaged in tug-of-war around nucleic acid testing standards, whether to wear masks, whether to return to work, the distribution of medical materials and the provisions of the rescue bill, which delayed the implementation of anti-epidemic measures. The website of Time magazine reported in May last year that 90% of COVID-19’s deaths were caused by the slow social isolation measures in the United States.

　　The second "root cause": "bulk" system

　　The United States implements three levels of government governance: federal, state and local. Public health affairs such as COVID-19 epidemic belong to the state power of each state, and are mainly managed by state and local governments. The "bulk" decentralization system makes the United States face great obstacles in responding to the epidemic. The federal and state governments are fragmented and constrained each other, making it difficult to quickly integrate resources to coordinate the response.

　　The U.S. federal government’s anti-epidemic measures lack mandatory provisions. Since March last year, States have announced their own "home orders", but some States are eager to restart in April and May. In April last year, seven states on the east coast, such as New York, formed a "multi-state agreement", and three states on the west coast, such as California, formed a "western state agreement", which did not accept the leadership of the federal government and coordinated epidemic prevention and resumption of work on its own.

　　The lack of guidance of the federal government on the protection of epidemic prevention materials and the confusion of financing and deployment have led to the war of grabbing epidemic prevention materials among the federal, state and local governments. At the peak of the epidemic last year, New York, California, Illinois and other countries rushed to buy ventilators, constantly raising prices among themselves, and even making conflicts and blaming each other.

　　Claybourn, chairman of the Subcommittee on Coronavirus Crisis of the U.S. House of Representatives, criticized that six months after the outbreak of the epidemic in the United States, the U.S. government has not yet formulated a unified national strategy to protect people’s health, and the direct consequence is that the anti-epidemic pace of each state is different.

　　The third "root cause": the life gap

　　Most medical institutions and medical insurance companies in the United States are private, and the high medical cost has long been criticized, while the US government has neither the will nor the ability to change the dominant position of capital. Capital priority and interest priority make people’s right to life and health not equally guaranteed. The so-called "beacon of democracy" left a new record of human rights violations in the epidemic. For example, some medical institutions acquiesced in "selective treatment" for COVID-19 patients, and poor people, ethnic minorities and other vulnerable groups were given up treatment first.

　　According to an article published on the British Guardian website, in front of Covid-19, the rich and powerful groups in the United States have priority to be rescued. In a survey conducted by Gallup Consulting, 14% of American adults said that if they or their family members had symptoms related to COVID-19 infection, they would give up treatment for fear that they could not afford the treatment.

　　According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June this year, the risk of Hispanic Americans being infected with COVID-19 is twice that of whites, and the risk of dying from a new crown is 2.3 times that of whites; Native Americans and people of African descent are also at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and dying than whites. Adams, former director of the American Public Health Bureau, said that the mortality rate of African-American COVID-19 was much higher than the overall mortality rate, not for physiological or genetic reasons, but because of social factors, which made African-Americans more susceptible to infection.

　　The epidemic has hit the American economy hard, a large number of people have been unemployed for a long time, and contradictions such as polarization between the rich and the poor and ethnic conflicts have further intensified, making life more difficult for the bottom people. Studies by the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame show that the poverty rate in the United States rose rapidly from 9.3% in June last year to 11.7% in November of the same year.

　　The Atlantic Monthly commented: "It is not Covid-19 that has torn the United States, but the epidemic has exposed the tearing of the United States."

　　The fourth "root cause": social polarization

　　Some groups in the United States unilaterally emphasize individual freedom. The effect of wearing masks, social isolation, vaccination and other measures to curb the epidemic has long been proved in science. However, in the United States, whether to implement these measures has become a dispute of values and has risen to the level of "infringement of individual freedom". Accompanied by anti-mask, anti-isolation, anti-vaccine and other protests, which seriously hindered the implementation of epidemic prevention measures. Differences in values are intertwined with partisan struggles, becoming more intense and polarized.

　　In April last year, some people in 20 states took to the streets to protest against the "home order" issued by the state government. Many protesters did not wear masks or keep social distance.

　　In the fourth wave of epidemic since July this year, the number of confirmed cases of new children in the United States has been rising, but many States are still deeply mired in the debate about whether masks should be forced to wear in schools. Florida Governor De Santis issued an executive order in July prohibiting schools from forcing students to wear masks, saying that the decision should be in the hands of parents.

　　The fifth "root cause": the United States gives priority.

　　COVID-19 epidemic is a public health crisis sweeping the world, which needs the joint efforts of all countries in the world. As the world’s number one power, the United States not only failed to shoulder its due international responsibilities, but allowed the virus to spread to other countries, allowing a large number of Americans to travel abroad during the rapid spread of the epidemic; Engage in "vaccine nationalism", hoard vaccines far exceeding the needs of its citizens and restrict vaccine exports; Announcing withdrawal from the World Health Organization at a critical moment in the fight against the epidemic, disrupting the overall situation of the international fight against the epidemic.

　　More than 660,000 people died, which failed to make American politicians reflect on the reasons for the failure of domestic anti-epidemic. Instead, they are eager to use the problem of virus traceability to blame China for "throwing the pot" to divert people’s attention. In order to use the issue of traceability to achieve political goals, the US government tried to pressure WHO to launch a "targeted traceability" against China, and also used intelligence agencies to concoct a so-called traceability investigation report.

　　Vladimir danilov, a Russian political observer, said that Washington is pursuing the "America first" policy in the most shameless way. "Concerns of other countries … … It is not considered by the Biden administration at all. "

　　All kinds of beggar-thy-neighbor behaviors are the embodiment of the foreign policy characterized by hegemonism and power politics pursued by the United States for a long time. The United States has always believed in "American exceptionalism", obsessed with advocating the superiority of its own system and values, and the actual behavior is the priority of its own interests. This hypocrisy of "saying one thing and doing another" has increasingly attracted the resentment of the international community.

　　"We are failing each other." In August this year, the weekend edition of USA Today reported the fourth wave of epidemic in the United States. If we don’t get rid of the deep-seated "roots" of political system and values, it can be predicted that the epidemic situation in the United States will be difficult to be effectively controlled. Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Ying