来源：《卫报》
日期：2020年12月7日
By far the worst-off victims of coronavirus have been elderly people. The worst-off victims of Brexit are going to be elderly people. As reported by the Sunday Times, on 1 January EU staff who care for older people in residential homes cannot be recruited to work in the UK, as they earn below a ￡25,600 threshold for skilled workers. This will apply whether or not there is a “deal” on Brexit trade this week.
到目前为止，新冠肺炎最大的受害群体是老年人。而英国脱欧最大的受害群体也将是老年人。据《星期日泰晤士报》报道，从2021年1月1日起，在家庭护理中心照顾老人的欧盟员工将无法在英国从业，因为他们的年收入低于技术工人的门槛——25600英镑。无论脱欧贸易协定是否达成，该项规定都会实施。
In parts of south-east England, up to a third of care workers come from the EU. While EU workers make up 8% of care staff in England overall, some areas have vacancy rates of 25%. This recruitment crisis is far worse than for the summer agricultural workers, where farmers were able to lobby for relief.
在英格兰东南部的部分地区，多达三分之一的护理人员来自欧盟。欧盟工人占英格兰护理人员总数的8%，但一些地区的空缺率高达25%。这种用人荒比夏季的农业工人要严重得多，在夏季，农场主可以通过游说获得救济。
From the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the government has shown a lack of interest in the care sector, because its concern was for its own NHS. Care homes were not its responsibility. Thousands of elderly patients were duly exported into care homes without testing to free up hospital beds last spring. Initially, deaths in these setting were not even counted in official statistics. Only when it became clear that this was a major cause of Britain’s desperate death rate were the homes given PPE supplies. It is to be hoped a public inquiry one day locates where, between ministers, officials and the NHS, responsibility for this scandal should lie.
从冠状肺炎大流行开始，政府就对保健部门表现出漠不关心，因为它关心的是自己的国家医疗服务体系。养老院不是它的责任。去年春天，成千上万的老年病人在没有经过检查的情况下被转移到养老院，以腾出医院的床位。最初，官方统计中甚至没有统计这些场所的死亡人数。当人们意识到这是导致英国死亡率高企的主要原因时，这些养老院才得到了个人防护装备。希望有一天，公共调查能在部长、官员和NHS之间找出这起丑闻的责任所在。
Care home residents have since been hit by a battery of thoughtless Whitehall lockdown regulations and guidelines, such as those banning visits. Now they are to be denied the one medicine to their health and happiness: the company of trained attendants. De-staffed care homes will have to go into complete shutdown, with not even the remotest prospect of future relief.
自那以后，养老院居民受到了白厅一系列轻率的封锁规定和指导方针的打击，比如禁止探访。现在，他们的健康和幸福的唯一良药被剥夺了: 训练有素的护理人员的陪伴。人手不足的养老院将不得不彻底关闭，未来也没有得到任何救济的希望。
Though clearly in time British staff may be found and trained for these homes, the work is difficult and turnover is high. As the charity Age UK reports, already “illness and the need to self-isolate have further depleted a workforce characterised by sky-high vacancies and turnover”. The prospect now is of enforced closures of the community’s most desperately needed service.
虽然很明显可以及时为这些养老院找到并培训英国员工，但这项工作很困难，而且人员流动率很高。正如慈善机构老年英国（Age UK）报道的那样，“疾病和自我隔离的需要进一步耗尽了以极高空缺率和人员流动为特征的劳动力”。现在事情的前景是强制关闭社会最急需的服务。
The only imaginable beneficiary from the imminent ban is the political reputation of the home secretary, Priti Patel, who has made cutting immigration numbers her cause. The ban flies in the face of the economy’s need for skilled workers. It raises UK labour costs. It weakens labour-intensive industries, from catering and hospitality to health and welfare, services that are already reeling from Covid lockdown.
从即将出台的禁令中唯一可以想象的受益者是内政大臣普里蒂·帕特尔，她把削减移民人数作为自己的事业。这项禁令与经济对技术工人的需求背道而驰。它提高了英国的劳动力成本。它削弱了劳动密集型产业，从餐饮业、酒店业到卫生和福利领域，这些服务业已经因新冠疫情导致的封锁而摇摇欲坠。
This particular restriction targets precisely those victims whose most pressing need is not for people with scarce skills or costly technology, merely for those offering patience and kindness. There is no cause whatsoever to slam the nation’s door in such people’s faces. Patel should withdraw her nasty regulation at once. This was never what Brexit should have meant.
这一特别的限制恰恰针对那些受害者，他们最迫切需要的不是拥有稀缺技能或昂贵技术的人，而是那些提供耐心和善意的人。没有任何理由对这些人关上国家的大门。帕特尔应该立即撤销她那令人讨厌的规定。这绝不是英国脱欧的本意。