英语播客EnglishPod 532

Upper-Intermediate - Planning For The Worst (D0025)

A: Well, right, let’s move to our next order of business,as many of you are aware, in recent weeks there has been a lot of media coverage¹ surrounding this bird flu issue. And it’s come to my attention that our company lacks any sort of bird flu contingency² plan.

B: Basically, we need to come up with a clear plan; we need to outline specific actions that our company can take to maintain critical business functions in case a pandemic strikes.
A: So, what I’d like to do is: first appoint someone to look after drafting our plan; Ralph, I’d like you to head up this project.
C: Sure, no problem. What issues do you want me to consider?
B: Well, let’s see, there are a few points we need to be thinking about. . . first, I’ll need you to analyze³ our numbers and figure out what kind of financial impact an outbreak might have.

A: You’ll also need to think about how we can avoid any of our employees getting infected; think of ways to reduce employee-customer contact, perhaps some IT solutions that will allow our people to work from home.

C: I guess you’ll need me to forecast employee absences as well, right? And I’ll think about the impact this will have on our clients. Hey, what about vaccines⁴? Should we be thinking about getting vaccines for our employees?

A: Exactly right. So, I’ll leave this to you, and we’ll review the draft plan in two weeks. Okay, so, anyone want to order some KFC for lunch?

 

1 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

2 contingency   

n.意外事件，可能性

参考例句：

• We should be prepared for any contingency.我们应该对任何应急情况有所准备。
• A fire in our warehouse was a contingency that we had not expected.库房的一场大火是我们始料未及的。

3 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

4 vaccines   

疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His team are at the forefront of scientific research into vaccines. 他的小组处于疫苗科研的最前沿。
• The vaccines were kept cool in refrigerators. 疫苗放在冰箱中冷藏。