PBS高端访谈:美国佛州新增确诊病例现单日最大增幅,各种病毒四起

Sreenivasan: For more about Florida's response, I spoke¹ with Ben Conarck, who covers health care for the Miami Herald² earlier today. Ben, where is Florida now in responding to the surge in coronavirus cases?

Ben: I think it's really kind of...we're starting to see the state respond now. A lot of their response earlier was focused on nursing homes, protecting the elderly and, you know, focused on reopening. And we did a project here at the Miami Herald that looked at what we could see in the data as the state was reopening. And what we found was that we didn't really meet these criteria³ that the C.D.C. Recommended when we reopened. Public health experts were concerned at the time. And then there was a month or so where it was pretty muted, I would say, as far as the case numbers down here in south Florida...we always had a lot. But in other parts of the state, it was pretty quiet until very recently.

Sreenivasan: You're in Miami-Dade county. Fourth of july is coming up. What are the plans?

Ben: Well, the county mayor here just announced that they are going to be closing all the beaches for july 4th weekend. So, everyone found that out late last night. That was after a dramatic increase in the case numbers statewide. We saw nearly 9,000 cases yesterday, which was...dwarfs⁴ anything we had seen before that. So, there was a lot of tension that had been building up over the last week. We were seeing these cases jump, and everyone was kind of wondering how bad it was going to get. We still don't know that. You know, the numbers we saw yesterday, the numbers we saw the day before that really reflect infections that started affecting people, you know, a week or more ago. You don't only have the lag for getting a test result, but then you have a lag when the state process that...processes that test result. So, you really have to look at it one week at a time, and the last week was certainly an alarming one.

Sreenivasan: And how easy is it to get the information from the health department or the state? How transparent⁵ is the process? How kind of real-time are you accessing all the numbers in Florida?

Ben: Yes, so I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't speak for all journalists, but I think I can speak for most journalists when I say it's been a frustrating⁶ experience getting information from the health department and the governor's office. Our newspaper, the Miami Herald, has had to sue the state to get information on nursing homes, and we, you know, we were able to succeed with that. So, it's...it's been an ongoing⁷ process. Now, the state does release a lot of data, but that shifts around. It's always a moving target. And...and when the metrics start to look bad, we're told to focus on something else, so...

Sreenivasan: And now, at the same time, Miami-Dade county is seeing an increase in west Nile Virus cases, as well?

Ben: Yeah. That is...you know, that's not uncommon⁸ down here, but that is absolutely concerning. I mean, mosquitoes are very omnipresent in Miami. There's been zika down here before. We're seeing Dengue already down in the keys. This is a tropical climate and there are a lot of infectious diseases here. And, you know, that also brings me to hurricanes. We're entering hurricane season, which is always, you know, even in...in a normal year, it's a challenge for Florida. And Florida has gotten really good at preparing and responding to hurricanes, but we've never done it during a pandemic. Or, I guess we have, like a century ago, but it's been a while. So, that's going to be...it's going to be interesting to see. And I think it's a concern for a lot of public health experts that, given how much transmission there is, you know, sheltering people in gyms, in close, confined places could be really bad.

Sreenivasan: All right, Ben conarck from the Miami Herald, thanks so much.

Ben: Thanks for having me.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 herald   

vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎

参考例句：

• In England, the cuckoo is the herald of spring.在英国杜鹃鸟是报春的使者。
• Dawn is the herald of day.曙光是白昼的先驱。

3 criteria   

n.标准

参考例句：

• The main criterion is value for money.主要的标准是钱要用得划算。
• There are strict criteria for inclusion in the competition.参赛的标准很严格。

4 dwarfs   

n.侏儒，矮子（dwarf的复数形式）vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的第三人称单数形式）

参考例句：

• Shakespeare dwarfs other dramatists. 莎士比亚使其他剧作家相形见绌。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The new building dwarfs all the other buildings in the town. 新大楼使城里所有其他建筑物都显得矮小了。 来自辞典例句

5 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

6 frustrating   

adj.产生挫折的，使人沮丧的，令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's frustrating to have to wait so long. 要等这么长时间，真令人懊恼。
• It was a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. 那是一次有失颜面并且令人沮丧至极的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

8 uncommon   

adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的

参考例句：

• Such attitudes were not at all uncommon thirty years ago.这些看法在30年前很常见。
• Phil has uncommon intelligence.菲尔智力超群。