美國找了個厲害的女人來對付新冠疫情

Dr. Deborah Birx was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014 to lead the government's fight against the global AIDS epidemic. Now she is coordinating the response to the coronavirus.

2014年貝拉克·奧巴馬總統任命Deborah Birx博士帶領政府抗擊全球艾滋病蔓延。現在她又開始對抗新冠肺炎。

In the spring of 1983, even before the virus that causes AIDS had a name, a young Army doctor named Deborah L. Birx suffered excessive bleeding while giving birth. Moments before she passed out from pain, she screamed an order at her husband: “Do not let them give me blood!”

1983年春天，Deborah L. Birx還是一位年輕的軍醫，當時引發艾滋病的病毒都還沒有被命名。她生產時大出血，在疼暈前對丈夫喊道：“不要讓他們給我輸血！”

She may have saved her own life. The blood she would have received was later discovered to be contaminated with H.I.V.

她救了自己一命。後來發現原本要輸給她的血液被艾滋病病毒污染了。

Now, after researching H.I.V. and devising public health strategies to combat it for more than three decades, Dr. Birx has a new virus to fight. As President Trump’s newly named White House coronavirus response coordinator, she has the difficult task of tracking and orchestrating the government’s effort to contain the outbreak, while projecting a calm, authoritative presence to counter the mixed messages from Mr. Trump.

30多年來，Birx博士研究艾滋病病毒，並制定公共衛生戰略來抗擊艾滋病，現在她又要對抗新型病毒了。特朗普總統剛剛任命她爲白宮新冠肺炎應變協調員，她負責追蹤的艱鉅任務，以及安排政府控制疫情的工作，同時還要對特朗普發佈的混亂信息作出冷靜、權威的判斷。

Dr. Birx — who carried the rank of ambassador at the State Department — is stepping gingerly into the public eye. She has taken pains not to contradict the president, praising the White House for its “energy and efficiency.”

Birx博士是美國國務院的大使，現在正小心翼翼地走入公衆視線。她盡力不反駁總統，還要稱讚白宮的“努力和高效率”。

That kind of political savvy helps explain why Dr. Birx is one of only a handful of Obama political appointees who is still working for the Trump administration.

這種政治頭腦就能解釋爲什麼Birx博士是爲數不多的曾被奧巴馬任命，現在又能爲特朗普政府效力的人了。

Dr. Birx, a colonel in the Army, began her career in the early 1980s as an immunologist in the army. She “was a star then, according to Dr. Fauci, another member of the coronavirus task force, “and what has happened over the years, she’s become a superstar.”

Birx博士有上校軍銜，從20世紀80年代早期開始就是軍隊中的免疫學家。新冠肺炎特別工作組的另一成員Fauci博士說她“以前是小有名氣。經過這麼多年，現在名揚四方了。”

With the military committed to reducing the spread of H.I.V. in its own ranks, Dr. Birx was on the cutting edge of research. Shepherd Smith, an evangelical Christian leader and a founder of Children’s AIDS Fund International, said Dr. Birx and her colleagues at the Defense Department sometimes spotted epidemiological trends even before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

軍隊要努力減少其內部艾滋病的傳播，Birx博士就處在研究前沿。福音派基督教領袖Shepherd Smith創辦了國際兒童艾滋病基金會，他說Birx博士和她在美國國防部的同事們有時甚至比疾病預防控制中心先發現流行病的趨勢。