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| HONG KONG — For Chan Shun Ki, a cleaner at a construction site in Hong Kong, getting over the coronavirus was the easy part. | 香港——对于在一处建筑工地工作的清洁工陈顺琪（音）来说，从新冠病毒中康复是比较容易的部分。 |
| Ms. Chan was anxious to return to work after missing more than a week last month while recovering. She had already skipped her rent payment after the pandemic wiped out her previous jobs cleaning hotels and waiting tables. She was borrowing money from relatives to make up for the loss of her $83 daily wage. | 陈顺琪急于重返工作岗位，上个月，她因为养病有一个多礼拜没上班。由于疫情的缘故，她失去了以前在酒店当清洁工和服务生的工作，结果连房租都交不出。她向亲戚借钱，弥补约650港元日薪的不足。 |
| But then she received a text message from the government health system, which was battling days-long backlogs. It ordered her to stay home for two more weeks because her coronavirus test had come back positive. She had taken it 12 days earlier. | 但随后她收到了来自政府卫生系统的短信，该系统正在奋力追赶积压了数天的检测工作量。由于收到的新冠病毒检测结果呈阳性，系统命令她在家里再待两周。而此前，她已经居家12天。 |
| “I feel so much pressure,” said Ms. Chan, who is a single mother of a 15-year-old. “The government is really incompetent, and it leaves us residents not knowing what to do.” | “我压力好大，”陈顺琪说，她是一个15岁孩子的单身母亲。“政府真的好无能，搞得我们市民不知道怎么办。” |
| As Hong Kong sinks under its fifth, and worst, coronavirus wave, the brunt is falling upon its most vulnerable: migrants, racial minorities, the working class. While the city has long been one of the most unequal on earth, rarely has the cost of that inequality been as steep as now. | 随着香港陷入第五波、也是最严重的一波新冠病毒疫情，首当其冲的是最弱势的群体：移民、少数族裔和工人阶级。虽然这座城市长期以来一直是地球上最不平等的城市之一，但这种不平等的代价很少像现在这样严重。 |
| That is, in part, because of the sheer scale of this wave, which in two months has led to more than 250,000 infections and 800 deaths — multiple times as many as in the previous four waves combined. Bodies have piled up in hospital hallways because morgues have no more room. Older patients have been left on gurneys outdoors. | 一定程度上是因为这波疫情的规模之大，它在两个月内已导致超过25万人感染，800人死亡——是前四波疫情总和的数倍。由于太平间不够用，尸体堆积在医院的走廊里。老年患者睡在户外的病床上。 |
| But the suffering has also been exacerbated, some say, by government policy. Under direction from the central Chinese authorities, Hong Kong officials have insisted on some of the world’s most stringent social distancing rules, crippling many service industries. Yet, they have failed to contain the virus. | 但有人说，政府政策也加剧了这种痛苦。在中央政府的指示下，香港官员坚持执行世界上最严格的一些社交距离规定，使许多服务业陷入瘫痪。但他们却未能控制住病毒。 |
| As a result, poor residents in cramped apartments have spread the virus to their families because the government has run out of isolation facilities. Those who recover cannot return to work because the testing jam means they cannot prove they are negative. | 结果，由于政府的隔离设施已满，狭窄公寓里的贫困居民将病毒传播给了家人。那些康复的人无法重返工作岗位，因为检测结果积压滞后意味着他们无法证明自己是“阴性的”。 |
| Migrant domestic workers, predominantly Southeast Asian women who work as caregivers and cleaners, have been fired after getting sick and forced to sleep on the streets. (Hong Kong law requires the workers to live in their employers’ homes.) Vegetable prices have soared, but the government has offered limited cash relief. | 外籍家佣生病后被解雇，不得不露宿街头，这些家佣以东南亚女性为主，从事看护和清洁工作。（香港法律要求家佣住在雇主家中。）蔬菜价格飙升，但政府提供的现金救济有限。 |
| At times, officials have actively challenged efforts to help the needy. A top official threatened to prosecute members of the public who raised funds for migrant workers fined for violating social distancing rules. | 有时，官员们大力反对人们提供帮助给有需要的人。一名高级官员威胁要起诉那些为违反社交距离规定而被罚款的外籍劳工筹集资金的人。 |
| Roger Chung, a professor of public health ethics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the containment measures risked doing as much harm to low-income residents as the virus itself. | 香港中文大学公共卫生伦理学教授锺一诺说，遏制措施对低收入居民造成的伤害不亚于病毒本身。 |
| “I don’t think the goal of protecting people’s health from Covid-19 is the only incontestable goal” in policymaking, he said. “Because these policies can also take a toll on other people’s well-being, especially in destabilizing their income and livelihoods.” | “我认为保护人们免受Covid-19伤害在政策制定中不是唯一确定的目标，”他说。“因为这些政策也会损害其他人的福祉，尤其是会破坏他们的收入和生计。” |
| Even before the pandemic, Hong Kong’s inequality was staggering. It has more billionaires than any city but New York, yet more than 200,000 residents live in carved-up tenement homes where the average living space per person is 48 square feet. | 甚至在疫情之前，香港的不平等现象就令人震惊。它的亿万富翁数量仅次于纽约，然而超过20万名居民住在人均面积4.5平方米的㓥房中。 |
| Amid the pandemic, those often dilapidated living quarters are even more perilous. The plumbing is frequently reconfigured to accommodate the multiple households sharing one apartment, and faulty installation can allow the virus to spread between floors. Insufficient ventilation has also fueled transmission. | 在疫情期间，那些通常破败不堪的居住区更加危险。管道往往经过改装，以适应共享一间公寓的多个家庭，而错误的安装可能导致病毒在楼层之间传播。通风不足也助长了病毒传播。 |
| Social distancing is impossible. Ms. Chan, the single mother, shares a one-room apartment with her son. Days after she fell sick, he did, too. | 保持社交距离是不可能的。单身母亲陈顺琪与儿子合住一个单间公寓。在她生病几天后，他也生病了。 |
| Some residents, desperate to avoid infecting their relatives, have slept on their rooftops or in stairwells. The Society for Community Organization, a nonprofit organization, said that it had received calls for help from nearly 300 people who were isolating at home, without access to food or medical supplies, since the fifth wave began in January. | 一些居民害怕感染他们的亲属而睡在屋顶或楼梯间。非营利组织香港社区组织协会表示，自第五波疫情从1月开始以来，已接到近300人的求助电话，这些人在家中隔离，无法获得食物或医疗用品。 |
| The lack of isolation facilities has proved equally, if not more, challenging for migrant domestic workers, who make up about 10 percent of the working population, have few legal rights and often suffer discrimination. | 事实证明，缺乏隔离设施给香港外佣带来的挑战只多不少，他们约占工作人口的10%，几乎没有法律权益，而且经常遭受歧视。 |
| Inah, an Indonesian worker who has been in Hong Kong for three years, began coughing on Feb. 21. Her employer ordered her not to return to the house until she had a negative test result, said Inah, who insisted on being identified only by her first name for fear of losing her job. | 依娜是一名在香港工作了三年的印尼家佣，她从2月21日出现咳嗽。依娜说，她的雇主命令她在检测结果呈阴性之前不要回去。因为害怕失去工作，她坚持要求不要提及她的姓。 |
| For hours, she stood in the rain outside her employer’s home. Finally, around midnight, her employer allowed her in, ordering her to go straight to her room without using the restroom, Inah said. In the morning, she was kicked out again. | 她在雇主家门外的雨中站了几个小时。依娜说，最后在午夜时分，她的雇主允许她进来，命令她不要用厕所，直接进她的房间。早上，她又被赶出去了。 |
| “Why do you just push me; you never helped me with anything?” said Inah, who eventually found a place to stay through the nonprofit HELP for Domestic Workers. | “你为什么就会赶我走，你什么忙都不帮？”依娜说，她最终通过非营利性家佣匡扶组织HELP找到了一个住处。 |
| HELP’s executive director, Manisha Wijesinghe, said that, over five days in February, the group took in nearly 70 workers who had become homeless after testing positive. | HELP的执行董事马尼莎·维杰辛格说，在2月的五天里，该组织接收了近70名在检测呈阳性后无家可归的工人。 |
| Hong Kong’s Labor Department said in a statement that firing domestic workers for illness was illegal. | 香港劳工处在一份声明中表示，因家佣生病而将其解雇是非法的。 |
| But the authorities themselves have been accused of discrimination. Last month, after the government tightened restrictions on group gatherings, the police announced they had conducted a raid in an area where domestic workers “commonly gather” and issued 17 tickets. The $640 per person fine is more than the workers’ minimum monthly wage. | 但当局本身也被指控歧视。上个月，在政府收紧对集体聚会的限制后，警方宣布他们在一个外佣“经常聚集”的地区进行了突击搜查，并开出了17张罚单。每人5000港元的罚款超过了这些外佣的最低月工资。 |
| In response, some residents organized an online fund-raiser, collecting $14,000 in three days. Then the labor secretary, Law Chi-kwong, accused them of encouraging illegal activity and said he would consider legal action. The organizers shut down the fund-raiser. | 一些居民组织了一次网络筹款活动作为回应，在三天内筹集了10.7万港元。然后劳工局长罗致光指责他们鼓励非法活动，并表示他会考虑采取法律行动。组织者关闭了筹款活动。 |
| Even residents who have avoided infection are straining under the pandemic’s economic burden. | 在疫情的经济负担下，即使是避免了感染的民众也感到不堪重负。 |
| The prices of vegetable shot up after one-fifth of the city’s vegetable truck drivers were left unable to work because of quarantine rules. (About 90 percent of Hong Kong’s produce comes from mainland China.) In late February, the average cost of Chinese lettuce was nearly three times as high as the price a month earlier, according to official statistics. Prices for tomatoes and potatoes have nearly doubled. | 该市五分之一的蔬菜卡车司机因隔离规定而无法工作后，蔬菜价格飙升。（香港约90%的农产品来自中国内地。）据官方统计，2月下旬，生菜的平均价格是一个月前的近三倍。西红柿和土豆的价格几乎翻了一番。 |
| Chan Lap To, who owns a vegetable stand on western Hong Kong Island, said most customers were buying less than usual. But he had to hike prices. In addition to running the stall, he also sold vegetables to hotels and restaurants, and that business had plummeted by half because of the unstable supply and weak demand. | 在香港岛西部经营蔬菜摊位的陈立陶（音）说，大多数顾客都比平时买得少。但他不得不提高价格。除了摆摊外，他还卖蔬菜给酒店和饭店，由于供应不稳定且需求疲软，生意骤减一半。 |
| He said he had not received any government aid to make up for his losses. “This is very unfair for all Hong Kong people,” Mr. Chan said. “It’s all connected.” | 他说他没有得到任何政府援助来弥补他的损失。“这个对所有的香港人都很不公平，”陈立陶说。“因为牵连是很大的。” |
| The government has offered financial support for certain industries, and last week, officials proposed a nearly $22 billion relief package, including roughly $1,300 vouchers for most residents. But some businesses have been excluded from the previous subsidies. And the vouchers are digital, meaning they cannot be used for rent or at ubiquitous stalls like Mr. Chan’s that accept only cash. | 政府为某些行业提供了财政支持，上周，官员们提出了一项1700亿港元的救助计划，其中包括为大多数居民提供1万元港币的代金券。但一些企业已被排除在先前的补贴之外。而且这些代金券是数字化的，这意味着它们不能拿来交租金，也不能用于像陈立陶这样的摊位，这种随处可见的摊位只接受现金。 |
| Hong Kong also does not have unemployment insurance. The government pledged last month to give one-time $1,300 payments to people who lost their jobs in the fifth wave. But those who became unemployed earlier were not eligible. | 香港也没有失业保险。政府上个月承诺向第五波失业者一次性支付1万元港币。但在此之前失业的人没有资格领取。 |
| For Ms. Chan, the government’s promises may bring temporary relief. But what she really wants is to get back to work. To do that, she would welcome even more draconian measures, such as a citywide lockdown, to get coronavirus cases under control. | 对陈顺琪来说，政府的承诺可能会带来暂时的缓解。但她真正想要的是重返工作岗位。她会为此支持更严厉的措施，例如全市封锁，以控制疫情。 |
| “Dragging along like this, so I can’t work for several months — this is no way to do things,” she said. “Short-term pain is better than long-term pain.” | “为你这样一直拖，拖到几个月都没有工作做，都不是一个办法，”她说。“长痛不如短痛了。” |
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