2021考研英語：紐約時報精選·衡量生命價值

考研英語來源：文都考研網整理 2020-04-10　

he(Trump) was raising an issue that economists have long grappled with: How can a society assess the trade-off between economic well-being and health?

他(特朗普)提出了經濟學家長久以來努力解決的問題：一個社會如何評估經濟福祉和健康之間的取舍?

President Trump and leading business figures are increasingly questioning the wisdom of a prolonged shutdown of the American economy — already putting millions out of work — to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

特朗普總統和商界領袖們越來越多地質疑，為遏制新型冠狀病毒的蔓延而讓美國經濟長期停擺是否明智——這種停滯已經讓數百萬人失去了工作。

however, a widespread consensus among economists and public health experts that lifting the restrictions would impose huge costs in additional lives lost to the virus — and deliver little lasting benefit to the economy.

經濟學家和公共衛生專家倒是普遍認為，取消這些限制將使更多的人死于這種病毒，付出巨大的代價，而且幾乎不會給經濟帶來什么長期的好處。

Weighing economic costs against human lives will inevitably seem crass. But societies also value things like jobs, food and money to pay the bills — as well as the ability to deal with other needs and prevent unrelated misfortunes.

權衡人類生命的經濟成本似乎不可避免地顯得愚蠢。但是，社會也重視工作、食物和支付賬單的錢等事物，以及滿足其他需求和防止不相關的不幸的能力。

Government agencies calculate these trade-offs regularly. The Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has established a cost of about $9.5 million per life saved as a benchmark for determining whether to clean up a toxic waste site.

政府機構定期計算這樣的取舍。例如，美國環護署(Environmental Protection Agency)設定了一個標準，每拯救一個生命的成本約為950萬美元，將其作為是否清理有毒廢物場地的決定基準。

Other agencies use similar values to assess whether to invest in reducing accidents at an intersection or to tighten safety standards in a workplace. The Department of Agriculture has a calculator to estimate the economic costs — medical care, premature deaths, productivity loss from nonfatal cases — of food-borne disease.

其他機構使用類似的方法進行量化評估，以決定是投資減少十字路口的事故，還是加強工作場所的安全標準。農業部有一個計算標準，用來估計食源性疾病的經濟成本——醫療保健、過早死亡、非致命病例造成的生產力損失。

Now, some economists have decided to stick their necks out and apply this thinking to the coronavirus pandemic.

現在，一些經濟學家決定冒險把這種想法應用到冠狀病毒大流行上。

Based on epidemiological projections, as the virus ran unchecked, it would quickly expand to infect somewhat over half the population before herd immunity would slow its course.

根據流行病學預測，當病毒不受控制地傳播時會迅速擴大，感染半數以上的人口，然后群體免疫才會減緩其進程。

A policy to contain the virus by reducing economic activity would slow the progression of the virus and reduce the death rate, but it would also impose a greater economic cost.

通過減少經濟活動來遏制病毒的政策，可以減緩病毒發展并降低死亡率，但它也將帶來更大的經濟代價。

It comes down to what a life is worth.

歸根結底，這是在衡量生命的價值。