Bernie Sanders: The Foundations of American Society Are Failing Us(2)

　アメリカ大統領選挙の民主党候補者選からは残念ながら離脱してしまったBernie Sandersだが、若者たちを中心に大変な支持を得たし、彼がはじめたgrass-roots運動は今後もさらに広がることだろう。
　本日のGetUpEnglishも、昨日につづいて4月19日のThe New York Timesにサンダースが寄稿した記事を読んでみる。
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/opinion/coronavirus-inequality-bernie-sanders.html

The pandemic has also made clear the irrationality of the current system. Unbelievably, in the midst of the worst health care crisis in modern history, thousands of medical workers are being laid off and many hospitals and clinics are on the verge of going bankrupt and shutting down. In truth, we don’t have a health care “system.” We have a byzantine network of medical institutions dominated by the profit-making interests of insurance and drug companies. The goal of a new, long-overdue health care system, Medicare for All, must be to provide health care to all, in every region of the country — not billions in profits for Wall Street and the health care industry.

　byzantineは「入り組んだ、ひどく込み入った」であるが、『リーダーズ英和辞典』にある「権謀術数[陰謀]を事とする, 面従腹背の」の定義が参考になるかもしれない。

It is true that the Covid-19 virus strikes anyone, anywhere, regardless of income or social status. Prince Charles of Britain has been diagnosed with Covid-19 and the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has just been released from a hospital. Rich people get the virus and rich people die. But it is also true that poor and working-class people are suffering higher rates of sickness and are dying at much higher rates than wealthy people.

This is especially true of the African-American community. This disparity in outcomes from exposure to the virus is a direct reflection not only of a broken and unjust health care system but also an economy that punishes, in terrible ways, the poor and working class of this country.

In addition to millions of lower-income families not having any health insurance, Covid-19 virus is vicious and incredibly opportunistic in attacking people with pre-existing conditions and weakened immune systems. For a wide variety of socio-economic reasons, it is the poor and working class in this country who are exactly in that position as they suffer higher rates of diabetes, drug addiction, obesity, stress, high blood pressure, asthma and heart disease — and are most vulnerable to the virus. Poor and working-class people have lower life expectancies than rich people in general, and that tragic unfairness remains even truer with regard to this pandemic.

　immuneは「（義務･責任などを）免除された、（攻撃･競争などから）保護された、守られた」
　次のように使われる。

　Vitamins strengthen the immune system and protect against disease.
　「ビタミンは免疫の働きを高め、病気になるのを防ぎます」

Further, while doctors, governors and mayors tell us that we should isolate ourselves and stay at home, and rich people head off to their second homes in less populated areas, working-class people don’t have those options. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, and you lack paid medical and family leave, staying home is not an option. If you’re going to feed your family and pay the rent, you have to go to work. And, for the working class, that means leaving your home and doing jobs that interact with other people, some of whom are spreading the virus.

　赤字の部分など、現在のアメリカの実情を示している。この部分は以下のように訳せるだろう。

低賃金でぎりぎりの生活を強いられれば、有料医療も受けられないし、家族のために仕事を休むこともできず、家にいることなどできない。家族を食べさせ、家賃を払うために、仕事に行かなければならない。労働者は家を出てほかの人たちと一緒に仕事をしなければならないし、すでにウイルスを拡散しているかもしれない人たちとの接触も覚悟しなければならないのだ。

　that meansは、「それは……を意味する」とするよりも、この状況では「……も覚悟しなければならないのだ」くらいにすればいいと思う。

If there is any silver lining in the horrible pandemic and economic collapse we’re experiencing, it is that many in our country are now beginning to rethink the basic assumptions underlying the American value system.

　この部分はこんなに訳せるだろうか。

　このおそろしいパンデミックと経済破綻に明るい希望があるとすれば、この国の多くの人たちがアメリカの価値体系の根底を成す基本的な仮説を考え直しつつあることだ。

　silver liningは「（不幸中などでの）明るい希望」
　次のように使われる。

　Every cloud has a silver lining.
「どんな悪いこともよい側面がある」