Covid-19 in 2020: The year when everything changed.
built a campaign: 创建了1个竞选
return to normalcy n. 正常状态;常态
turn back to: 重回
an appeal: 呼吁
supposed urge ：假定的主张
the certainties of the Golden Age： 黄金时代的确定性
forward-looking: adj.向前看的;有远见的;有进步思想的
risk-taking: adj. 勇于冒险的
have sth to do with：和...有关
have dealings with sb： 和某人打交道
inhibition: 拘谨;拘束感;阻止;抑制;禁止
six times as many: 6倍之多的
at speed:快速的
animate: 推动、鼓舞
wear off：感觉逐渐消失，消逝
the novelty wore off :这种新奇的感觉逐渐消失，消逝
once-in-a-century event : 百年一遇的事件
Warren Harding built a campaign for the presidential election in 1920 around his new word "normalcy". It was an appeal to American's supposed urge to forget the horrors of the first world war and the Spanish flu and turn back to the certainties of the Golden Age. And yet, (然而)
instead of embracing Harding's normalcy, the Roaring Twenties became a ferment of forward-looking, risk-taking social, industrial and artistic novelty.
War had something to do with the Jazz Age's lack of inhibition. So did the flu pandemic, which killed six times as many Americans and left survivors with an appetite to live the 1920s at speed.
That spirit will also animate the 2020s.
The sheer scale of the suffering from covid-19, the injustices and danger the pandemic has revealed, and the promise of innovation mean that it will be remembered as the year when everything changed.
many hundreds of thousands：无数的
have gone unrecorded: 没有记录的
it would otherwise have been: 原本
the biggest slump since the second world war : 二战以来最为萧条的时期
The pandemic has been a once-in-a-century event. SARS-CoV-2 has been found in over 70m people and possibly infected another 500m or more who were never diagnosed. It caused 1.6m recorded deaths; many hundreds of thousands have gone unrecorded.
World economic output is at least 7% lower than it would otherwise have been, the biggest slump since the second world war.
slaughter: n.屠宰;宰杀;(尤指战争中的)屠杀，杀戮 v.屠宰;宰杀;屠杀;杀戮;(在体育比赛等竞赛中)大比分击败，使惨败
Petri dishes :培养皿,Petri德国细菌学家的姓氏
Another reason to expect change----or, at least, to wish for it---is that Covid-19 has served as a warning. The 80bn animals slaughtered for food and fur each year are Petri dishes for the viruses and bacteria that evolve into a lethal human pathogen every decade or so. This year the bill come due and it was astronomical.
And the third reason to expect change is that the pandemic has highlighted injustice. Children have fallen behind in their lessons---and too often gone hungry. School leavers and graduates have once again seen their prospects recede. People of all ages have endured loneliness or violence at hone.
lockdown: 居家隔离时期
as much in eight weeks as it had in the previous five years. ： 八周和前五年一样多
Fortunately, covid-19 has not just brought about the need for change, it also points a way forward. That is partly because it has served as an engine of innovation. Under lockdown, e-commerce as a share of Anerican retail sales increased as much in eight weeks as it had in the previous five years.
what matters most: 最重要的事;生命中最重要的;最重要的;最重要的是
Many people under lockdown have asked themselves what matters most in life.
individual dignity: 个人尊严
self-reliance：自力更生
rely on :依靠
so as to = in order to
Governments should take that as their inspiration, focusing on policies that promote individual dignity, self-reliance and civic pride. They should recast welfare and education and take on concentrations of entrenched power so as to open up new thresholds for their citizens. Something good can come from the misery of the plague year. It would include a new social contract fit for the 21st century.
