whole ball game

新型コロナウィルスによるパンデミックは、ワクチン接種が進む米国や英国で一時はマスクを着けなくても良いというような状況にまでなりましたが、その後変異株による感染拡大が再び影を落としています。

マスクを外して本当に大丈夫か？というような状況になってきているのですが、事はマスク云々ではなく、ワクチン接種率を如何に上げるか、ということになりつつあるようです。

CNNの論説記事から引用しました。

(CNN) -- Months into an aggressive Covid-19 vaccination campaign that had begun to stall as a large segment of Americans refused to get inoculated, there is some evidence that progressive politicians are finally starting to respond to the demands of their fed-up and Covid-vaccinated constituents.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio correctly said masking is a secondary concern when "the whole ball game is vaccination." And he is acting on it, announcing Tuesday that the city will require proof of vaccination in the form of a health pass for entrance into gyms, restaurants, and indoor entertainment venues. The city will begin enforcing the program -- the first of its kind in a US city -- on September 13, he said.

It's a necessary and overdue step. But why aren't more cities and states taking it? And more importantly: Why isn't President Joe Biden?

(Jill Filipovic. It's time to turn up pressure on unvaccinated. CNN. August 4, 2021.)

ワクチン接種に推進派と消極派、そして懐疑派があることについては敢えて説明の必要もないと思いますが、引用した記事の論調は、感染拡大はワクチン接種に消極的な人々をどうするかにかかっている、と明白です。

ニューヨーク市長であるデブラシオ氏の以下のような発言が引用されています。

"the whole ball game is vaccination."

先に書きましたように、マスク着用是非という話から、ワクチン接種率（をどう上げるか）という話になってきていることを受けての発言です。

"ball game"とは野球の試合（ゲーム）のことですが、ここでは状況とか事態といった意味で用いられており、"whole ball game"、また"new ball game"といった表現は、全く新しい事態、これまでとは異なる状況である、という意味合いがあります。新局面という日本語もあてはまるかもしれません。

手元のCollins Cobuild Dictionary of Idiomsに以下の解説があります。

If you describe a situation as a new ball game or a different ball game, you mean that it has changed so much that people will have change the way they deal with it or consider it.

(Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms)

コーパスを検索していくつか用例を拾ってみました。

下記の用例は新しい技術、発明に関するコンテクストで用いられています。

The new technique, which researchers call Hydro-Seq, uses a microfluidic chip designed to catch circulating tumor cells. It allows comprehensive genetic profiling of the cancer cells and is "a dramatic improvement over current approaches," because it encompasses the variation among cancer cells within a single patient, officials said. "This could be a whole different ball game," said Max Wicha, the Madeline and Sidney Forbes Professor of Oncology at UM. 

(Detroit News, 2019)

以下は自然災害（山火事）を伝える記事での用例です。

While they ate, county and laboratory officials gathered for a news conference, but the briefing was interrupted when lab official Dick Burick got a phone call: The fire had jumped containment lines and entered Los Alamos Canyon, eating its way through pine trees on its way toward town. "It's a whole new ball game," Burick said. Shortly after 1 p.m., the evacuation of Los Alamos began. Police and fire officials went door to door urging people to leave. Gas was shut off to parts of town.

(Associated Press, 2000)