外刊阅读

今天继续读外文试着翻译：

关于最近热谈的Covid-19

Better to support the economy directly, by helping affected people and firms pay bills and borrow money if they need it. For individuals, the priority should be paying for health care and roviding paid sick leave. The Trump administration is considering paying some hospital bills for those with the virus. Japan's government will cover the wages of parents who stay at home to care for children or sick relatives: Singapore's will help cab drivers and bosses whose employees are struck down. More such ideas will be needed.

更好的办法是直接支持经济，帮助受影响的民众和企业支付账单，并在他们需要时借钱。对于个人来说，优先考虑的应该是支付医疗保健费用和提供带薪病假。特朗普政府正在考虑为那些确诊病例支付一些医院的账单。日本政府将为那些在家照顾孩子或生病亲人的父母支付工资。新加坡政府将帮助出租车司机和被病毒击败的雇员的老板。我们需要更多这样的想法。

For companies the big challenge will be liquidity. And although this shock is unlike the financial crisis, when the poison spread from within, that period did show how to cope with a liquidity crunch. Firms that lose revenues will still face tax, wage and interest bills. Easing that burden, for as long as the epidemic lasts, can avoid needless bankruptcies and lay-offs. Temporary relie n tax and wage costs can help. Employers can be encouraged to choose shorter hours for all heir staff over lay-offs for some of them. Authorities could fund banks to lend to firms that are suffering, as they did during the financial crisis and as China is doing today. China is also ordering banks to go easy on delinquent borrowers. Western governments cannot do that, but it is in the interest of lenders everywhere to show forbearance towards borrowers facing a cash squeeze, much as banks did to public-sector employees during America's government shutdown in 2018-19.

对企业来说，最大的挑战将是流动性。尽管这次冲击不同于金融危机，当毒物从内部扩散时，那段时期确实显示了如何应对流动性紧缩。失去收入的公司仍将面临税收、工资和利息账单。只要疫情持续，减轻这种负担就可以避免不必要的破产和裁员。暂时减轻税收和工资成本会有所帮助。可以鼓励雇主为所有员工选择更短的工作时间，而不是解雇部分员工。当局可以为银行提供资金，向遭受危机的企业提供贷款，就像他们在金融危机期间所做的那样，就像中国现在所做的那样。中国还要求银行对拖欠贷款的借款人宽容一些。西方政府无法做到这一点，但对面临现金短缺的借款人表现出宽容符合世界各地银行的利益，就像银行在2018-19年美国政府停摆期间对公共部门雇员所做的那样。

There is a tension. Health policy aims to spare hospitals by lowering the epidemic's peak so that it is less intense, if longer-lasting. Economic policy, by contrast, aims to minimize how long factories are shut and staff absent. Eventually governments will have to strike a balance.Today, however, they are so far behind the epidemic that the priority must be to slow its spread.

这里存在一种冲突。卫生政策的目标是通过降低疫情高峰来空出医院，如果持续时间更长的话，这样疫情就不会那么严重。相比之下，经济政策的目标是尽量缩短工厂关闭和员工缺席的时间。最终，政府将不得不找到一个平衡点。然而，今天，他们远远落后于流行病，所以当务之急必须是减缓它的传播。