英国卫报:西班牙小镇为何成疫情重灾区(2)（在线收听）

As news spread through town that I was trying to count the dead, I received a call from town councillor Diego Mendiola.

当我试图清点死亡人数的消息在镇上传开时，我接到了镇议员迭戈·门迪奥拉的电话。

He confirmed that regional officials were refusing to give precise figures for Covid-19 deaths in Santo Domingo.

他证实，地方官员拒绝提供圣多明戈新冠肺炎死亡人数的确切数字。

All that residents could do was try to keep a tally.

居民们所能做的就是试着进行记录。

While we spoke, Mendiola stopped to read an incoming WhatsApp message. “That’s another one,” he said.

在我们说话的时候，门迪奥拉停下来读了一条WhatsApp消息。“又有一例，”他说。

In recent months, television pictures have shown us the empty streets of the world’s great metropolises – of Madrid, London, New York, Milan.

最近几个月，电视画面向我们展示了马德里、伦敦、纽约、米兰等世界大都市的空旷街道。

All have suffered badly. But outside the confined spaces of care homes and cruise ships,

他们都遭受了重创。但在疗养院和游轮的密闭空间之外，

Covid-19 has been at its most lethal in a handful of southern European country towns.

新冠肺炎在少数南欧乡村城镇的致死率最高。

In Santo Domingo, without sufficient data from the regional government, it has fallen to residents to make their own estimates.

在圣多明戈，地方政府没有提供充足的数据，这就需要居民自己做出估计。

Based on the number of messages he has received from parishioners asking for deceased loved ones to be mentioned in mass,

根据从教区居民那里收到的要求在弥撒中提及已故亲人的信息，

the abbot, Francisco Suárez, now believes 42 people died in the six weeks after 16 March.

修道院院长弗朗西斯科·苏亚雷斯认为，在3月16日之后的六周内有42人死亡。

It is impossible to know exactly how many were killed by Covid-19, as opposed to other causes,

与其他原因相比，要确切地知道有多少人死于新冠肺炎是不可能的，

but a reasonable, possibly conservative, estimate –based on multiple sources including newspaper death columns,

但一个合理的，可能是保守的估计-基于包括报纸死亡专栏

funeral home websites and interviews with the head of the region’s local health districts – would be 35.

殡仪馆网站和对当地卫生部门负责人的采访在内的多种来源-是35人。

That may not sound like much in the context of a pandemic,

在疫情大流行的背景下，这听起来可能不太多，

but to get a sense of how shocking this figure is, it’s worth comparing it to the death rate in the world’s worst-affected major cities.

但要了解这个数字有多令人震惊，有必要把它与世界上受影响最严重的主要城市的死亡率进行比较。

London had 86 deaths per 100,000 by mid-April (and is now likely past 100), the Madrid region was at 131 in mid-May, and New York City is currently 201.

截至四月中旬，伦敦每十万人中有86人死亡（现在可能超过了100人），马德里地区在五月中旬达到了131人，纽约现在是201人。

The equivalent figure for Santo Domingo would be 550. Only the northern Italian province of Bergamo has experienced something similar.

圣多明戈对应的数字会是550。只有意大利北部的贝加莫省经历过类似的情况。

Towns such as San Pellegrino Terme and San Giovanni Bianco have the highest death rates of all, at around or above 1,000 per 100,000 from all causes during the worst weeks.

圣佩莱格里诺特尔姆和圣乔瓦尼比安科等城镇的死亡率最高，在最糟糕的几周内，各种原因造成的死亡率为每10万人中有1000人或以上。

“The pain becomes communal, precisely because, in these small places, everyone knows everyone,” Vittorio Milesi, the mayor of San Pellegrino Terme, told me.

圣佩莱格里诺泰姆的市长维托里奥·米莱西告诉我，“确切来说，这种痛苦变成了共有的，因为在这些小地方，大家都互相认识。”