Fluency News 18

Hello, everyone!

Sejam bem-vindos e bem-vindas a mais um episódio da nossa nova série de podcasts, o Fluency News! Aqui, você vai treinar a sua escuta e ficar por dentro do que está acontecendo no mundo, sempre com as três principais notícias da semana, tudo em inglês! Ao longo do episódio, nós também adicionamos explicações em português das coisas que achamos que precisam de mais atenção, assim você não perde nenhum detalhe!

No episódio desta semana, nós falamos sobre a enquete do Datafolha que revelou uma porcentagem alarmante de brasileiros que disseram que recusariam a vacina contra a Covid-19. Além disso, falamos também sobre centenas de alunos que estão desaparecidos na Nigéria, e sobre as regras que foram alteradas para permitir a doação de sangue de homens gays e bissexuais na Inglaterra.

Nós temos uma nova página de dicas de inglês no Instagram, vá conferir! @fluencytvingles

Toda semana temos um novo episódio do Fluency News, não deixe de escutar! See you!

Este episódio foi escrito por Lívia Pond.

Sources:

More Brazilians sceptical of COVID-19 vaccine: Poll
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/12/more-brazilians-sceptical-of-covid-19-vaccine-poll

Hundreds of high school students kidnapped in Nigeria, gang in firefight with military
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hundreds-high-school-students-kidnapped-nigeria-gang-firefight-military-n1251027?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma

Blood donation: Rule change means more gay and bisexual men can give blood
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55296525
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/blood-donor-rules-to-be-relaxed-for-gay-and-bisexual-men-in-england

Transcrição do episódio:

What is up, everyone! I’m Scott Lowe and welcome back to Fluency News, the news podcast that helps improve your comprehension and listening skills. As always, it’s great to have you here!

Before we get started, let me remind you that we now have Fluency News in the four other languages Fluency Academy currently teaches! You can check out fluencytv.com to hear those, and to check out over 700 lessons in five different languages. And, as always, all of that is free!

Now let’s just jump into it.

Scepticism towards a COVID-19 vaccine has increased in Brazil during the past months, a new poll showed on Saturday, as the country continues to grapple with high infection and death rates linked to the virus.

The Datafolha polling institute’s survey found that 22 percent of Brazilians said they would be unwilling to take any COVID-19 vaccine, up from 9 percent in August.

The survey also found that 73 percent of respondents planned to take a shot and 5 percent said they did not know if they would. Those figures were at 89 percent and 3 percent in August, respectively.

President Jair Bolsonaro has expressed doubt and opposition to using an inoculant to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control.

Brazil has the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, with more than 6.8 million infections since the pandemic began. More than 180,000 people have died, as well – the second-highest death count globally after the United States.

Bolsonaro has been one of the most prominent sceptics of COVID-19 among world leaders, repeatedly downplaying the virus’s severity, criticising lockdowns and touting unproven remedies.

Well, to us here in the US that sounds very familiar as well.

In November, he said he would not take any COVID-19 vaccine that became available, while adding that it was his “right” to refuse.

Bolsonaro specifically expressed scepticism about the inoculant being developed by China’s Sinovac and produced in conjunction with the Sao Paulo state government’s Butantan Institute.

According to the Datafolha poll, only 47 percent of respondents said they would take a vaccine made in China, while 50 percent said they would not take it. Three percent said they were undecided.

The data also showed a correlation between rejecting a vaccine and trust in Bolsonaro.

Thirty-three percent of people who said they always trust Bolsonaro also said they are unwilling to take the shot, compared with 16 percent who said they never trust him and are also unwilling to take a shot.

Meanwhile, health experts recently decried Bolsonaro’s apparent attempts to assert control over the country’s independent health regulators, Anvisa, which they worry could politicise the approval of a vaccine.

On November 12, Bolsonaro nominated a retired soldier with no background in medicine or vaccine development, Jorge Luiz Kormann, to take one of Anvisa’s five director posts.

Kormann would lead a unit responsible for greenlighting vaccines.

If the Senate confirmed Kormann, Bolsonaro’s allies would occupy three of the health regulator’s five seats, giving them a majority in all agency decisions.

Você deve ter notado que nessa história nós usamos muito a palavra WOULD. Desde o começo, o verbo modal está em praticamente todos os parágrafos. Isso acontece porque o “would” é um modificador, usado muito em condicionais. Como nessa notícia nós falamos de possibilidades e probabilidades de um evento que ainda não aconteceu, não é possível falarmos com certeza. Em português, a tradução do “would” é o IA ou RIA, que adicionamos ao fim do verbo. Por exemplo, would take the vaccine, fica tomaria a vacina.

Our next story comes from Nigeria, where tensions have been rising.

Gunmen who kidnapped scores of high school students in Nigeria’s northwestern Katsina state have exchanged fire with military forces trying to rescue them, the country’s president said Saturday.

Armed with AK-47s, the gang stormed the Government Science secondary school in Kankara district on Friday night, police and locals said.

A parent and school employee told Reuters that roughly half of the school’s 800 students were missing.

Condemning the attack in his home state, President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement that the military had located the kidnappers in a forest and was exchanging fire with them, aided by air support.

Police and the military were still working to determine how many were kidnapped and missing.

Police at the scene on Friday exchanged fire with the attackers, allowing some students to run for safety, police spokesman Gambo Isah said in a statement

Police said they would deploy additional forces to support the search and rescue. One officer was shot and wounded in the exchange of fire with the gang, they said.

Katsina is plagued by violence the government attributes to bandits – a loose term for gangs of outlaws who attack locals and kidnap for ransom. Attacks by Islamist militants are common in northeastern parts of the country.

Violence and insecurity across Nigeria have enraged citizens, particularly after scores of farmers were killed, some beheaded, by Islamist militants in northeast Borno state late last month.

Buhari, who arrived on Friday for a week in his home village some about 125 miles from Kankara, was scheduled to brief the national assembly on the security situation last week, but cancelled the appearance without official explanation

Nessa notícia nós temos o uso de uma estrutura gramatical chamada Past Continuous. O Past Continuous indica que algo estava acontecendo em um momento pontual do passado. Quando temos a frase “the military were still working to determine”, temos o Past Continuous. Ele é formado pelo verbo be no passado, aqui “were”, e o verbo seguinte na forma contínua, com ING no final, aqui “working”. Estavam trabalhando, were working.

And now it’s time for some positive news! A rule change means more gay and bisexual men can give blood in England.

Gay and bisexual men will be able to donate blood more easily from next summer following a landmark policy change, the NHS blood service has announced. The move has been welcomed by campaigners who have fought to overturn rules that “perpetuate inequality”.

Men in a long-term relationship with another man will be able to donate blood from next summer, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) said. The rules currently require all men who have had sex with men to abstain from sex for three months to give blood.

The change in policy will mean risk assessments for donors will be conducted on an individual basis, rather than a population-based one. It will mean that anyone who has the same sexual partner for more than three months will be able to donate if there is no known exposure to a sexually transmitted infection and they are not using anti-HIV drugs PreP or PEP, NHSBT said.

The health check questionnaire will include new behaviour-based indicators to assess potential donors, including considering whether a donor exhibits high-risk sexual behaviour such as having multiple partners or taking part in “chemsex” – having sex while under the influence of stimulants.

Campaigners applauded the step, with Ethan Spibey, the founder of the pressure group FreedomToDonate, saying: “Almost six years ago, our group of volunteers set out to rewrite the rules that had perpetuated inequality and prevented thousands of potentially safe donors from donating for too long. Today, we welcome a pioneering new policy and are immensely proud that more people than ever will be able to fairly give the life-saving gift of blood.” Well said, Spibey.

He added that the change in policy will allow for the “potential of so many safe donors” to be fulfilled, noting that the blood service had announced at the beginning of 2020 that it needed 68,000 new male donors.

Dr Michael Brady, medical director at the Terrence Higgins Trust, welcomed the move. He said “The UK is leading the way in ensuring that blood donation is more inclusive and now will allow many more gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men to donate blood.”

He added that there is “certainly more work to do” and the charity will “continue to work to ensure that our blood donation service is inclusive and evidence based”, noting restrictions remain in place for former injecting drug users among others.

Su Brailsford, associate medical director at NHSBT, which oversees blood donations in England and transplants across the UK, said: “Patients rely on the generosity and altruism of donors for their life-saving blood. We are proud to have the safest blood supply in the world and I’m pleased to have concluded that these new changes to donor selection will keep blood just as safe.”

She pledged to keep working with LGBT representatives, patients and donors in the run-up to next summer to ensure the donor assessment process is “inclusive and done well”.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, welcomed the step, adding that it “recognises individuals for the actions they take, rather than their sexual preference”.

The policy change is the latest easing of restrictions for donors. A lifetime ban on gay men donating was reduced to a one-year abstinence from sex requirement in 2011. It was then cut to a three-month requirement in 2017.

Essa notícia boa vai mudar muita coisa na Inglaterra. Nós sabemos disso pela quantidade de vezes que a palavra WILL foi usada. Nós tivemos “will allow, will be able, will be conducted, will include, will continue to work” e mais um monte. Quando falamos do futuro, usamos o WILL quando temos uma certeza maior do que vai acontecer, e quando uma decisão é tomada espontaneamente. Como aqui a mudança já é certa, o WILL é usado, pra fazer previsões do que acontecerá em seguida no país.

And that is it for today’s episode! I hope you enjoyed your time here and I hope you feel more connected to the world around you. Don’t forget to check out fluencytv.com for all our sources, the transcript of this episode and many lessons in five, yes, five different languages. There’s a new episode of Fluency News every week, and I’ll be here waiting for you. Peace out!