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美媒:都是特朗普的错么?美国抗疫不力是在为几十年的错误买单 | 外媒说
It's an easy cop-out to say that America can't mirror China...
美国疫情正在发展成为发达国家之“最”,扎卡里亚心痛地将这种现象讽刺为美国“优越论”新面孔。
The United States is on track to have the worst outbreak of coronavirus among wealthy countries. This is the new face of American exceptionalism.
The president has been inapt from the start, but there is a much larger story behind this fiasco.
“小政府”模式
扎卡里亚首先从历史的角度寻找原因。曾经的美国非常提倡精简高效的“小政府”模式。
美国曾提倡有限但有效的政府管理。富兰克林·罗斯福为美国创立了极其精简高效的现代联邦官僚机构。 America historically prized limited but effective government. Franklin Donald Roosevelt created the modern federal bureaucracy, which was strikingly lean and efficient.
但如今,情况完全不同了。近几十年来,随着政府(职能)范围的扩大,官僚机构就显得极其匮乏,政府功能失调的情况越来越多。
But in recent decades, as the scope of government increased, the bureaucracy was starved and made increasingly dysfunctional.
具体说来,政府资金缺乏、独立机构政治化、地方企图各自为政、政府工作人员和官员遭到蔑视……诸多问题导致的最终结果,却在疫情中,让美国民众为此买了单。
America is paying the price today for decades of defunding government, politicizing independent agencies, fantasizing local control and demeaning and disparaging government workers and bureaucrats.
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官僚作风
与五六十年前相比,联邦雇员人数不增反降。然而面对越来越繁杂的事务,人手不足,负担过重,加之官员没有权力和灵活度,因此根本无法有效应对。
20世纪50年代,联邦雇员人数在总就业人数中的比例超过5%。但如今,这一比例却降到2%以下。事实上,美国人口已经扩大到当时的两倍,GDP(扣除价格因素)比当时高出了7倍。 In the 1950s, the percentage of federal civilian employees compared to total employment was above 5 percent. It has dropped to under 2 percent today, despite a US population that is twice as large and a GDP that is seven times higher (adjusting for inflation) than the 1950s. 联邦机构人手不足,但负担过重,规章制度、政治授权以及规则繁多,官员们几乎没有权力和自由裁量权。 Federal agencies are understaffed but overburdened with mountains of regulations and politicized mandates and rules, giving officials little power and discretion.
在此次疫情中,美国食品药品监督管理局繁琐的规则和官僚作风,正是这一问题的集中体现。
The FDA's cumbersome rules and bureaucracy, which have proved a huge problem in this case, is just one example among hundreds.
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政府层级众多效率低下
扎卡里亚称,与肯尼迪总统时期相比,如今政府的层级多到令人咋舌。
长期研究这一课题的学者保罗·莱特指出,约翰·肯尼迪总统内阁有17个层级;到特朗普上台时,已经达到惊人的71层。 The scholar who has long studied this topic, Paul Light, notes that under John F. Kennedy, the Cabinet departments had 17 layers of hierarchy. By the time Donald Trump took office, there were a staggering 71 layers.
联邦政府俨然成为“官僚”“低效”的代名词。出现这种结果,两党都难辞其咎。
Both parties have contributed to the problem, making the federal government a caricature of bureaucratic inefficiency.
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地方政府各自为政缺少统一领导
此外,扎卡里亚认为,地方政府各自为政,缺少统一领导,也是美国在这次疫情中应对不力的重要因素。
美国各州、各地方数千公共卫生部门,拼凑起来的权威,在应对无国界的流行病面前,就是一场噩梦。任何地方部门一旦应对不力,都会导致疫情持续蔓延。你看吧,在佛罗里达的海滩上发生的事情绝不可能只限于佛罗里达的海滩。 And then we have America's crazy quilt patchwork authority with thousands of state, local and tribal public health departments. They are proving a nightmare when tackling an epidemic that knows no borders, and where any locality with a weak response will allow the infection to keep spreading elsewhere. You see what happens on Florida's beaches doesn't stay on Florida's beaches.
病毒检测就是一场惨败
首先,病毒检测开始得太晚,加之使用的检测盒有缺陷,大大影响了病毒检测的进程。
抗疫的第一道防线是病毒检测。在这关键的一步上,美国的经历是一场惨败。我们很晚才开始检测,使用的检测盒有缺陷,并且尚未恢复。 The first line of defense against the diseases is testing. On this key metric, the US experience has been a fiasco. We started late using a faulty test and never quite recovered.
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说人人都能检测就是个“骗局”
其次,病毒检测普及率太低也是导致这场惨败的重要因素。
特朗普总统所说的“任何人想检测就可以检测”,根本就是一个残忍的骗局。结果证明,与多数发达国相比,美国的检测普及程度要糟糕得多。 President Trump's claim that anybody that wants a test can get a test has turned out to be a cruel hoax. Access to tests remains much worse than in most advanced countries. 截至上周六,韩国人均检测次数是美国的三倍。意大利的人均检测次数都是美国的三倍。 Per capita South Korea has done three times more testing than the United States as of Saturday. Italy has also tested three times as much per capita as the US.
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基本医疗用品消耗殆尽
此外,基本医疗用品不足,导致很多病人得不到有效救治。
美国各地的基本医疗用品正在逐渐消耗。一份对美国200多位市长进行的调查显示,90%的市长说他们没有足够的防护设备供医护人员使用,比如口罩;85%的市长说他们没有足够的呼吸机。这意味着,许多人可能仅仅因为缺乏(医疗)设备而死亡。 Basic medical supplies are running low throughout the United States. In a survey of more than 200 mayors, 90 percent said they don't have enough protective equipment for healthcare workers like face masks, 85 percent don't have enough ventilators. That means many people could die simply because of a lack of supplies.
通过对美国现状的深入分析,扎卡里亚得出了一个结论:在当今世界,面临跨越国界的危机时,只有具备良好执行力的政府,才能使一个国家真正地脱颖而出。
In today's world, with problems that spill across borders at lightning speed, "well-executed government" is what makes a country truly exceptional.
China saved Wuhan by sending in huge amounts of resources from the rest of the country. We need the rest of the US to do the same now for New York.
然而扎心的事实是,纽约州、新泽西州和伊利诺伊州的州长表示,缺乏协调的联邦行动给各州和城市造成了混乱,甚至使各地陷入了对资源的争抢中。
A lack of coordinated federal action was causing chaos for states and municipalities, and even putting them in competition with each other for medical resources, the governors of New York, New Jersey and Illinois said.
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