A president unfit for a pandemic
一位應對大流行病的不適任總統
Much of the suffering and death coming was preventable. The president has
blood on his hands.
許多痛苦和死亡原本是可以避免的。 總統手上沾滿鮮血。
原文：The Boston Globe 社論 March 30, 2020
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/30/opinion/president-unfit-pandemic/
譯文：察網 http://www.cwzg.cn/politics/202004/56577.html
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” wrote W.B. Yeats in 1919. A
century later, it’s clear: The epicenter cannot hold. Catastrophic decisions
in the White House have doomed the world’s richest country to a season of
untold suffering.
“事物分崩離析；中心無以為繼。” 詩人威廉‧巴特勒‧葉慈 (William Butler Yeats)
於1919年如此寫道。一個世紀之後，很明顯：疫情爆發的中心已無法承受。白宮的災難性
決定使這個世界上最富有的國家注定要經歷一段無法言喻的苦難日子。
The United States, long a beacon of scientific progress and medical
innovation with its world-class research institutions and hospitals, is now
the hub of a global pandemic that has infected at least 745,000 people and
already claimed more than 35,000 lives worldwide. Now that the number of
confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States — more than 140,000 — has
surpassed that of any other nation, Americans are consigned for the coming
weeks to watching the illness fell family members and friends, and to fearing
for their own fate as they watch death tolls rise.
有著世界一流的研究機構和醫院的美國，長久以來一直是科學進步和醫學創新的燈塔，如
今則成為COVID-19全球大流行的樞紐，這個病毒已感染了全球至少74.5萬人，並已奪走了
3.5萬多條生命（截止到4月3日下午1點，全球感染人數為106.6萬，超過5.6萬人死亡——
譯者注）。如今，在美國已確認的COVID-19病例數量已超過14萬（截止到4月3日下午1點
，美國感染人數已超過25.8萬——譯者注），這已經超過了其他任何國家，因此，美國人
在接下來的幾週內將被迫看著這個疾病使家人和朋友病倒，看著死亡人數上升，同時擔心
著自己的命運。
While the spread of the novel coronavirus has been aggressive around the
world, much of the profound impact it will have here in the United States was
preventable. As the American public braces itself for the worst of this
crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not
attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure
of leadership.
儘管新型冠狀病毒在世界範圍內已廣為傳播，但它在美國產生的許多深遠影響曾是可以避
免的。當美國公眾鼓起勇氣為這場危機中最壞的情況做準備時，有件事情值得人們記住，
那就是病毒在這裡的蔓延並非歸因於上帝的舉動或外國入侵，而是領導層的巨大失敗。
The outbreak that began in China demanded a White House that could act
swiftly and competently to protect public health, informed by science and
guided by compassion and public service. It required an administration that
could quickly deploy reliable tests around the nation to isolate cases and
trace and contain the virus’s spread, as South Korea effectively did, as
well as to manufacture and distribute scarce medical supplies around the
country. It begged for a president of the United States to deliver clear,
consistent, scientifically sound messages on the state of the epidemic and
its solutions, to reassure the public amid their fear, and to provide steady
guidance to cities and states. And it demanded a leader who would put the
country’s well-being first, above near-term stock market returns and his own
reelection prospects, and who would work with other nations to stem the tide
of COVID-19 cases around the world.
在中國爆發的疫情要求白宮應當在科學的指導下，在同情心和公共服務的指引下，迅速而
有能力地採取行動保護公眾健康。它要求政府部門能夠像在韓國那樣有效地在全國範圍內
迅速部署可靠的檢測，隔離病例，追蹤和遏制病毒的傳播，並在全國範圍內製造和分發稀
缺的醫療用品。它要求美國總統就疾病流行的情況及其解決方案發出清晰、一致、科學的
資訊，以平復公眾的恐懼，為各城市和各州提供穩定的指導。它要求一位領導人，要把國
家的福祉放在首位，而且要高於近期的股市回報和他自己的連任前景，與其他國家一起遏
制COVID-19在全球擴散。
What we have instead is a president epically outmatched by a global pandemic.
A president who in late January, when the first confirmed coronavirus case
was announced in the United States, downplayed the risk and insisted all was
under control. A president who, rather than aggressively test all those
exposed to the virus, said he’d prefer not to bring ashore passengers on a
contaminated cruise ship so as to keep national case numbers (artificially)
low. A president who, consistent with his mistrust and undermining of
scientific fact, has misled the public about unproven cures for COVID-19, and
who baited-and-switched last week about whether the country ought to end
social distancing to open up by Easter, and then, on Saturday, about whether
he’d impose a quarantine on New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. A
president who has pledged to oversee the doling out of the $500 billion in
corporate bailout money in the latest stimulus package, some of which will go
to the travel industry in which his family is invested. A president who spent
a good chunk of a recent press conference complaining about how hard it is
for a rich man to serve in the White House even as Americans had already
begun to lose their jobs, their health care, and their lives. A president who
has reinforced racial stigma by calling the contagion a “Chinese virus” and
failed to collaborate adequately with other countries to contain their
outbreaks and study the disease. A president who evades responsibility and
refuses to acknowledge, let alone own, the bitter truth of National
Institutes of Health scientist Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony: that the
country’s testing rollout was “a failing.”
相反，我們所擁有的是一位被全球大流行史詩般擊敗的總統。一位當1月下旬美國宣佈首
例確診的冠狀病毒病例時，對風險輕描淡寫，並堅稱一切盡在掌控的總統。一位寧願選擇
不讓被污染的游輪乘客上岸，以（人為地）保持國家確診病例數量相對少，而不是積極地
檢測所有暴露於病毒的人的總統。一位由於不信任和破壞科學事實，錯誤引導公眾對
COVID-19的未經證實的治療方法，並於國家是否應在復活節之前結束保持社交距離，以及
之後的週六，是否對紐約州，新澤西州和康涅狄格州實施隔離，對公眾實施誘餌和轉換(
一種在商業中存在的非法欺騙形式——譯者注) 的總統。一位承諾監督最新一攬子刺激計
畫中5000億美元的公司救助資金的發放，而將其中部分資金投入到其家族投資的旅遊業中
的總統。一位在美國人民已經開始失去工作、健康甚至生命時，竟在最近一場新聞發佈會
上花大量時間抱怨作為一名富人在白宮服務有多麼艱難的總統。一位通過將傳染病稱為“
中國病毒”而加劇了種族歧視，但未能與其他國家充分合作以遏制疫情並研究該疾病的總
統。一位迴避責任並拒絕承認（更不用說負責）美國國家衛生研究院科學家安東尼‧福西
博士的見證：國家推出的測試是“失敗的”這個真相的總統。
Timing is everything in pandemic response: It can make the difference between
a contained local outbreak that endures a few weeks and an uncontrollable
contagion that afflicts millions. The Trump administration has made critical
errors over the past two months, choosing early on to develop its own
diagnostic test, which failed, instead of adopting the World Health
Organization’s test — a move that kneecapped the US coronavirus response
and, by most public health experts’ estimation, will cost thousands if not
hundreds of thousands of American lives. Rather than making the expected
federal effort to mobilize rapidly to distribute needed gowns, masks, and
ventilators to ill-equipped hospitals and to the doctors and nurses around
the country who are left unprotected treating a burgeoning number of
patients, the administration has instead been caught outbidding individual
states (including Massachusetts) trying to purchase medical supplies. It has
dragged its heels on invoking the Defense Production Act to get scarce,
sorely needed ventilators and masks into production so that they can be
distributed to hospitals nationwide as they hit their peaks in the cycle of
the epidemic. It has left governors and mayors in the lurch, begging for
help. The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the
threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19
cases than were necessary. In other words, the president has blood on his
hands.
在大流行應對中，時間就是一切：它可能是控制在持續數週的局部爆發與無法控制的蔓延
數百萬人的傳染之間的區別。川普政府在過去兩個月中犯了嚴重錯誤：選擇早期開發自己
的診斷測試，但失敗了，而沒有採用世界衛生組織的測試——此舉使美國的新冠病毒反應
受到限制，據大多數公共衛生專家據估計，這將導致數千甚至數十萬美國人的付出生命的
代價。相對於人們所預期的迅速動員聯邦力量向設備不足的醫院以及全國各地的正在沒有
保護地治療數量迅速增長的病患的醫生和護士分發防護服、口罩和呼吸機，川普政府則是
被發現試圖向各州（包括馬薩諸塞州）高價出售醫療用品。川普政府援引《國防生產法》
以使稀缺，急需的呼吸機和口罩投入生產，以便由他們在流行病高峰期將物資分發給全國
的醫院。這讓州長和市長們陷入只能乞求幫助的困境。川普政府對威脅及其後果的預判上
浪費的幾個月使COVID-19病例成倍增加，遠超過了必要的數字。換句話說，總統手上沾滿
了鮮血。
It’s not too much for Americans to ask of their leaders that they be
competent and informed when responding to a crisis of historic proportions.
Instead, they have a White House marred by corruption and incompetence, whose
mixed messages roil the markets and rock their sense of security. Instead of
compassion and clarity, the president, in his near-daily addresses to the
nation, embodies callousness, self-concern, and a lack of compass. Dangling
unverified cures and possible quarantines in front of the public like reality
TV cliffhangers, he unsettles rather than reassures. The pandemic reveals
that the worst features of this presidency are not merely late-night comedy
fodder; they come at the cost of lives, livelihoods, and our collective
psyche.
對於美國人來說，在應對歷史性危機時，質疑他們的領導者是否有能力和有見識並不為過
。相反，他們的白宮卻遭到腐敗和無能的破壞，其混雜的信息擾亂了市場並動搖了人們的
安全感。總統不但沒有同情心和明確性，反而在每天對國家的講話中都表現出冷漠，自我
中心和缺乏指導性。他像在真人秀電視節目結束時總要留個懸念一樣，在公眾面前晃蕩著
的未經驗證的治療方法和可能的隔離措施。他在製造不安，而不是安撫人心。這場大流行
揭露出，這位總統最糟糕的特點不僅僅是被拿來當午夜笑料，更是要讓我們付出生命，生
計和我們的集體精神。
Many pivotal decision points in this crisis are past us, but more are still
to come. For our own sake, every American should be hoping for a miraculous
turnaround — and that the too-little, too-late strategy of the White House
task force will henceforth at least prevent contagion and economic ruin of
the grandest scale. But come November, there must be a reckoning for the
lives lost, and for the vast, avoidable suffering about to ensue under the
president’s watch.
在這場危機中，許多關鍵的決策點已經過去，但還會有更多。看在我們自己的份上，每個
美國人都應該希望一個奇蹟般地轉折——白宮特殊工作小組那些太小，太遲的戰略至少可
以防止最大規模的傳染和經濟崩潰。但是到了11月，必須對逝去的生命、以及那些在總統
眼看著發生的、巨大的、本可避免的痛苦進行清算。