bear the brunt

先の見えない新型コロナウィルスとの闘いですが、昨日アメリカでの感染者が中国を上回ることになったと報じられていました。

新型コロナウィルスの名称に関しては、COVID-19という名称が定着してきましたが、中国当局が米軍により持ち込まれた可能性があると責任回避（！？）に走れば、そうはさせまじと、トランプ米大統領は中国を批判して、最初の発生が確認された湖北省武漢の名前を取って"Wuhan virus"と言い始めるなど、政治的な駆け引きが激しくなっています。

感染症や疾病の病名に、それが発生した国や都市の名前を用いるというのは歴史的に見ても行われてきたところです。

スペイン風邪、ライム病、西ナイル熱、エボラ出血熱、等々、多くがその例として知られていますが、こうした慣例は実のところその負の側面の方が大きいというのが専門家の見解です。


Infectious diseases throughout history have been named for geographic locations where they were thought to have originated: Spanish flu, West Nile virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Zika and Ebola, to name a few.

By that logic, it may seem that there's nothing inherently wrong with referring to the novel coronavirus as the "Wuhan virus" or the "Chinese virus," language which President Donald Trump has used and defended using. Wuhan is, after all, considered the first epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak that has since become a global pandemic.

But the past has shown naming diseases after places can have negative consequences for nations, economies and people.
Here's why scientists and scholars say these naming practices are problematic.
(Harmeet Kaur. Yes, we long have referred to disease outbreaks by geographic places. Here's why we shouldn't anymore. CNN. March 28, 2020.)


私はこの記事を読むまで知らなかったのですが、第一次大戦中に猛威をふるったスペイン風邪は、疫学的にはスペインが発生源であると示す証拠はなく、およそ5000万人の死者のうち、スペインでの死者というのは1%にも満たないのだそうです。


Take, for example, what's commonly referred to as the Spanish flu.

Despite its name, most researchers agree that the H1N1 virus that swept the world in 1918 and 1919 didn't originate in Spain, although there's no universal consensus on its exact origins. Instead, the virus came to be associated with Spain for reasons that were largely political.

The pandemic happened against the backdrop of World War I. Though the virus had been circulating around the world, nations such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, were reluctant to disseminate news on outbreaks within their own borders because they didn't want the other side to know their soldiers were sick, according to the history podcast BackStory.

Because Spain was neutral in the war, it didn't suppress news about the virus. So when Spanish news agencies began reporting in spring 1918 about an epidemic that had appeared in Madrid, it created the false perception that the virus originated in Spain -- and that the Spaniards bore the brunt of the disease.

In reality, out of the estimated 50 million people who died of the virus, less than 260,000 were likely from Spain.
(ibid.)



第一次大戦中、スペイン風邪は参戦国各国で確認されていたそうですが、自国の状況を公にすることで戦局に不利益が生じることを危惧した各国は隠蔽に走ったということです。

結局のところ、中立国であったスペインが新聞等で報じ始めたことをきっかけに、同国が発生源であるかのような誤解を与えてしまった、ということなんですが、引用の最後の部分、


the Spaniards bore the brunt of the disease


というのが今日取り上げる表現です。

"brunt"を辞書で引くと、（攻撃・打撃の）主力、矛先という意味で載っていますが、


bear the brunt of~


というフレーズで用いられることがほとんどで、～の矢面に立つ、とか～の矛先になる、という日本語訳になります。