新冠病毒肆虐印度，之前辛苦维持网上服装店的小商人改行卖起了口罩。请看本报昨日的报道：

Samik Sarkar was managing to eke a profit out of his online apparel store before the coronavirus crisis hit India, forcing the 36-year-old to reinvent his business overnight.

“I started selling masks because that’s all I could sell,” Sarkar said. “I have salaries to pay.”

The rapid global economic slowdown, India’s coronavirus lockdown of 1.3 billion people and an exodus of venture capital are testing a startup community that has quickly become one of the world’s biggest, raising a record US$14.9 billion last year.

报道中的eke out就是“竭力维持”的意思。例如：

In the surrounding countryside, farmers eke out a living by growing a variety of crops, mostly rice and peanuts.

在周围的乡村，农民为了生存会种上一点庄稼，大多数是大米和花生。