时代周刊:病毒刚刚来袭 美国农村就已放松警惕(1)

The Next Wave

下一波浪潮

Rural America may be letting down its guard just as the virus hits

病毒刚刚来袭，美国农村似乎就已放松警惕

By Vera Bergengruen

文/维拉·伯根鲁恩

It's cattle-branding season in the panhandle of Nebraska, but this spring things look different.

现在正值内布拉斯加州的狭长地带给牛打烙印的季节，不过，今年的形势似乎有些不同寻常。

Usually, one of the biggest social events of the year in a state where livestock¹ makes up two-thirds of farm revenue, brandings have been cut down to the essentials:

寻常的时候，打烙印都是这个畜牧业占到了农业收入2/3的州一年之中最为盛大的社交活动之一，今年，这一活动已经一切从简：

no children, no older crew members, and bag lunches instead of community gatherings².

没有孩子在一旁观摩，没有老一辈的把式在一旁指挥，大桌的宴席也变成了一个个的午餐包。

"This is not the year to have your daughter's friend from the city out to experience a branding," a local news article warned.

“今年可不是邀请你女儿的朋友从城里来乡下观摩打烙印的年份，”当地一篇新闻告诫称。

"Not taking precautions can mean the difference between life and death for some loved ones."

“不做好预防可能就意味着要从此与你心爱之人阴阳相隔。”

COVID-19 is not yet widely visible across the roughly 15,000-sq.-mile region,

幅员大约1.5万平方英里的内布拉斯加州内似乎尚未出现大规模的爆发，

which has only 75 confirmed cases as of May 12, but the danger of the pandemic is very real,

截至5月12号一共才75例，不过，大流行的威力倒是十分真实的，

says Kim Engel, the director of the Panhandle Public Health District.

狭长地带公共卫生区主任金·恩格尔说道。

There are only 31 ventilators for 87,000 people here,

人口多达8.7万人的该地区只有31台呼吸机可供使用，

so even a small spike³ could quickly overwhelm the local health system.

因此，即使是一个小高峰也能迅速让当地卫生系统变得不堪重负。

"We're still waiting for our peak," Engel says,

“我们还在等（疫情曲线的）峰值，”恩格尔说，

emphasizing that it won't look like the urban outbreaks that have dominated national headlines.

他强调说，即便当地真的出现峰值，也不会和霸占了各大头条的城市疫情的峰值一样。

"We're afraid we are really just starting on that upward curve."

“我们担心的是，我们的（疫情）上升曲线现在才真正开了个头。”

In mid-April, President Donald Trump⁴ declared that largely rural parts of the heartland were in the clear,

4月中旬时特朗普总统曾宣称，美国心脏地带周边农村为主的地区是没有危险的，

holding up regions like Engel's as ones that might reopen "literally⁵ tomorrow" because they looked "a lot different than New York."

为此他还举例称，一些地区，就像恩格尔所在的地区那样的地区说不定“真的明天”就能重新开放了，因为它们看起来“和纽约大不一样”。

Several governors who have resisted lengthy⁶ stay-at-home orders are wielding⁷ the lack of urban density⁸ as a reassurance⁹.

拒绝长时间居家隔离命令的州长正在以当地并没有城市拥挤为由安抚人心。

"It's so important not to turn on the news and look at New York City and think that that's what Lemmon, S.D., is going to face in a month,"

“极其重要的一点是，不要打开新闻看到纽约市的疫情就觉得一个月后南达科他州莱蒙市也会变成那个样子，”

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said at an April 1 press conference.

南达科他州州长克里斯蒂·诺伊姆在4月1日的记者会上说道。

But as the country's leaders talk of reopening the shuttered economy,

然而，随着国家领导层越来越多地谈到重启停滞的经济，

it is precisely¹⁰ these regions of the U.S. that are among the most at risk.

美国的这些地区恰好就成了面临风险最大的地区之一。

A TIME analysis of county-level COVID-19 cases shows that the virus is only just now arriving in much of rural America.

从《时代》周刊对县级新冠病例所做的分析来看，新冠病毒目前才刚刚抵达美国大部分农村地区。

That means some of these sparsely¹¹ populated areas could be letting down their guard just as the disease is about to hit.

这就意味着疫情才刚刚要来临，一些人口稀少的地区就已经开始放松警惕了。

Just over one month ago, on April 1,

就在一个多月前，准确地说就是4月1日那天，

every single county in America with more than 100,000 residents had documented COVID-19 infections,

美国所有居民超10万的郡县都出现了新冠肺炎感染病例，

while just 1 in 4 of those with 9,000 or fewer people had a confirmed case.

而居民规模在9000甚至更少的地区中只有1/4的地区出现了确诊病例。

1 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

2 gatherings   

聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集

参考例句：

• His conduct at social gatherings created a lot of comment. 他在社交聚会上的表现引起许多闲话。
• During one of these gatherings a pupil caught stealing. 有一次，其中一名弟子偷窃被抓住。

3 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

4 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 lengthy   

adj.漫长的，冗长的

参考例句：

• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
• The professor wrote a lengthy book on Napoleon.教授写了一部有关拿破仑的巨著。

7 wielding   

手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的现在分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响）

参考例句：

• The rebels were wielding sticks of dynamite. 叛乱分子舞动着棒状炸药。
• He is wielding a knife. 他在挥舞着一把刀。

8 density   

n.密集，密度，浓度

参考例句：

• The population density of that country is 685 per square mile.那个国家的人口密度为每平方英里685人。
• The region has a very high population density.该地区的人口密度很高。

9 reassurance   

n.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• He drew reassurance from the enthusiastic applause.热烈的掌声使他获得了信心。
• Reassurance is especially critical when it comes to military activities.消除疑虑在军事活动方面尤为关键。

10 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

11 sparsely   

adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地

参考例句：

• Relative to the size, the city is sparsely populated. 与其面积相比，这个城市的人口是稀少的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The ground was sparsely covered with grass. 地面上稀疏地覆盖草丛。 来自《简明英汉词典》