美国国家公共电台 NPR 英国首相和卫生大臣确诊新冠病毒 首席医疗官自我隔离

The coronavirus has rocked the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his health secretary have tested positive, and the U.K.'s chief medical officer has symptoms and is self-isolating¹. For more, we turn to NPR's Frank Langfitt in London.

Hi, Frank.

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE²: Hi, Ari.

SHAPIRO: I can't think of any other major country whose government has been hit this hard by the disease. Put it into context for us.

LANGFITT: Yeah. You know, the political systems, of course, are different, so any comparison is going to be inexact. But I would say this would be like if President Trump³ and, maybe, the head of FEMA got the virus and Anthony Fauci was isolating at home with symptoms. Johnson — yeah, I mean, I think that it was a pretty shocking day. Johnson says he remains⁴ in charge. He's directing the response from Downing Street using video conferencing. The good news is all three of these British officials are reporting mild symptoms. But I got to say, in terms of public leadership, it's hard to imagine a worse scenario⁵ right now.

SHAPIRO: So Boris Johnson made this announcement in a cellphone video this morning. Has he been heard from since?

LANGFITT: No. We haven't seen anything from him since that. Both he and Chris Witty⁶ — he's the chief medical officer — they've been in near constant presence on these daily televised press conferences. Both were absent today. Instead, the conference was led by Michael Gove, who runs the U.K.'s Cabinet Office. Now, remember; we've been talking about this. Johnson has come under a lot of criticism. People feel he moved too slowly to lockdown the U.K. Since then, he's been preaching social distancing, telling people, of course, to stay at home. The reporters today asked the obvious question, which is, why weren't the prime minister and these other officials better protected? And one of the questions was, were they careless or negligent⁷? Michael Gove didn't really have a direct answer to that. This was his response.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MICHAEL GOVE: The prime minister, succumbing⁸ to the virus, is a reminder⁹ of how seriously we all need to take the advice that the NHS has been giving us.

SHAPIRO: The NHS — that's the National Health Service. It's been underfunded and understaffed for years, so what's the government doing to build up capacity as cases of the coronavirus continue to grow?

LANGFITT: Well, they're already — yeah, Ari, they're already building a field hospital in London, in East London in the docklands. They announced today another couple of field hospitals at Birmingham and Manchester. These are in convention centers. They're going to start testing front line health workers. There was a lot of criticism because they weren't actually doing that. Right now, there are about 6,000 COVID-19 cases in the hospital. The death toll¹⁰ is around 760 in the country. But many doctors and nurses, Ari, are really worried. They talk about a tsunami¹¹ of cases coming in the next week or two, perhaps. They don't have enough protective masks, enough ventilators. And last night, the government showed support for the health workers, leading cheers for the NHS. About 8 o'clock, people came out of their homes all over the country to applaud. And this is what it sounded like in our neighborhood.

(CHEERING)

SHAPIRO: That is NPR's Frank Langfitt bringing us the sound of people supporting and cheering for their health care workers in London.

Thank you, Frank.

LANGFITT: You're very welcome, Ari.

1 isolating   

adj.孤立的，绝缘的v.使隔离( isolate的现在分词 )；将…剔出（以便看清和单独处理）；使（某物质、细胞等）分离；使离析

参考例句：

• Colour filters are not very effective in isolating narrow spectral bands. 一些滤色片不能很有效地分离狭窄的光谱带。 来自辞典例句
• This became known as the streak method for isolating bacteria. 这个方法以后就称为分离细菌的划线法。 来自辞典例句

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 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。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

5 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

6 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

7 negligent   

adj.疏忽的；玩忽的；粗心大意的

参考例句：

• The committee heard that he had been negligent in his duty.委员会听说他玩忽职守。
• If the government is proved negligent,compensation will be payable.如果证明是政府的疏忽，就应支付赔偿。

8 succumbing   

不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的现在分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死

参考例句：

• Mrs. Smith washed and ironed clothes for him, succumbing to him. 史密斯太太被他迷住了，愿意为他洗衣烫衣。
• They would not in the end abandon their vital interests by succumbing to Soviet blandishment. 他们最终决不会受苏联人的甜言蜜语的诱惑，从而抛弃自己的切身利益。

9 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

10 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

11 tsunami   

n.海啸

参考例句：

• Powerful quake sparks tsunami warning in Japan.大地震触发了日本的海啸预警。
• Coastlines all around the Indian Ocean inundated by a huge tsunami.大海啸把印度洋沿岸地区都淹没了。