A visit to a makeshift testing facility in Ward 7, across the river from the washington Redskins' crumbling and abandoned former stadium, provides a snapshot of this calamity. Bertina, a 64 -year- old teacher wearing sweatpants and a Redskins' bandanna ("Don't photograph me, I look like a bum") said her aunt had died of the virus in Atlanta after three hospitals had refused to admit her. Seventeen-year-old M'Kya said she had heard her brother, incarcerated in New York, had the virus. Overweight and sweating heavily, she was visibly unwell; she hoped it might be her allergies.
在华盛顿红人队摇摇欲坠的废弃的体育场对面的街区7，参观一下临时测试设备，就可以看到这场灾难的快照。伯蒂娜是一名64岁的老教师，她穿着运动长裤，带着红人队的色彩鲜艳的头巾（“别拍我，我看起来像是一个乞丐”），她说做自己的姑姑在亚特兰大死于这场病毒，因为有3家医院拒绝接收她。17岁的M'Kya表示她听说她在纽约被监禁的哥哥感染了病毒。她明显很不舒服，超重且多汗；她希望可能是自己过敏。
The facility, where both women had come to have their nostrils swabbed for the virus, is another symptom of a general failure. It was launched three weeks ago as a philanthropic endeavour by Howard University-America's first black medical school-to address a shortage of testing in the part of Washington that needs it most. "You can tell things are bad when a dermatologist is running covid-19 tests!" said Ginette Okoye, a Howard professor wrapped in a mask, goggles and layers of protective clothing.
这两个女人都是在这个设施里进行鼻孔病毒擦拭的，这是另外一种普遍性失败的征兆。三周前，这项设施作为一项慈善事业，由美国第一所黑人医学院——霍华德大学发起，旨在解决华盛顿最需要测试的地区缺乏测试的问题。霍华德大学教授吉内特·奥科耶说，“当皮肤科医生进行covid-19测试时，你可以看出情况很糟糕！”他戴着口罩、护目镜，穿着层层防护服。
Though there are many causes of black ill-health, the solution probably starts with improving blacks' access to health care.
尽管造成黑人健康不良的原因很多，但解决办法可能首先是改善黑人获得医疗保健的机会。
There have been three significant efforts to do so since slavery, which all to varying degrees spluttered in the face of a backlash from whites.
自从奴隶制以来，为实现这一点已经进行过三项重大的努力，但这些努力都在不同程度上受到白人的强烈反对。
The first, during Reconstruction, was a decade-long effort on behalf of freed slaves, which constituted the first government intervention in health care. The second, in 1964--65, was a bundle of laws and edicts, including the passage of the civil-rights and Medicaid acts and court rulings to desegregate hospitals. It gave African- Americans access to the regular health-care system for the first time. Yet the legacy of Jim crow remained, as Wards 7 and 8 illustrate, in a patchy extension of services to black areas-and sometimes worse. Doctors in Macon County, Alabama, continued their 40-year "study of untreated syphilis in the Negro male" until 1972. (They didn't tell the 400 sharecroppers under observation that they had syphilis. They told them they had "bad blood".)
第一次发生在美国重建时期，为解放的奴隶的利益，进行了长达十年的努力，这是政府对医疗保健的第一次干预。第二次是在1964到65年，是一系列的法律和法令，包括民权法案和医疗补助法案的通过，以及废除医院种族隔离政策的法庭裁决。它让非洲裔美国人第一次有机会使用常规的医疗保健系统。然而，正如街区7和街区8所展示的那样，吉姆·克劳留下的遗产仍然会对黑人地区服务进行零散延伸，有时甚至更糟。阿拉巴马州梅肯县的医生们继续他们长达40年的“针对未经治疗的男性黑人梅毒患者的研究”，直到1972年。（他们没有告诉被观察的400个佃农他们患有梅毒。他们说他们有“坏血病”。）
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
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