Hi I'm Andrew I'm an English teacher and this is another English lesson with
about advanced English vocabulary based on the world news what's the most
important world news story at the moment well clearly unfortunately it's the
coronavirus in this lesson I'm going to read you this story and I'm going to
explain the vocabulary as we go along so the dominant story around the world
remains the coronavirus the unfolding drama is spooking people all over the
world from world leaders to investors to members of the public biologists have
long said that we were overdue another outbreak of a deadly killer disease such
as Spanish flu instead of flu what we have is corona virus which scientists
have now dubbed coded 19 the disease is now spreading around the world and the
worsening situation has much of the world's media agog so the expressions in
red I will briefly explain the unfolding drama so if we think of a piece of paper
folded several times and then if you think of it unfolding then as it unfolds
you can see more and more happening and this is the idea of the word unfolding
in this context when we use it as a collocation with the noun drama spooking
well literally this is what we would say a ghost does to somebody if you spook
somebody you really scare them we also often talk about horses being spooked so
you might hear about a horse going here and throwing off its rider and we say
the horse is spooked but in general if somebody is spooked
than they are scared the expression long said is a common expression in English
it just means that people have been saying this thing for a long time dubbed
scientists dubbed the virus kovat 19 if you dub something
something then that is the name that you give to that thing the worsening
situation another common collocation in English it
just needs figs are becoming worse and worse and it has much of the world's
media agog if you if you if something has somebody a GOG then they are kind of
staring almost in disbelief at what is happening as you will know unless you've
spent the past two months on Mars this virus originated in Hebei Province in
China the virus is believed to have jumped from some type of animal into
humans the Chinese have long been in the habit
of having live animals for sale at their markets unsurprisingly in view of events
the Chinese government has now launched a crackdown on this practice this might
help stop a future outbreak but the current outbreak continues to spiral out
of control so here where you launch a crackdown if a government launches a
crackdown on something then it decides that that thing will no longer be
allowed to happen if something spirals out of control then people including
governments no longer feel they have any control any real control over the
situation the expression unless you've spent time on Mars is just
a way of saying that unless you haven't been paying attention then you must
already notice other than China the main countries currently under the cosh
ourself Korea Iran and Italy as was the case in China the authorities in Iran
have faced withering internal criticism due to an apparent failure to get to
grips with the problem as quickly as they should have done authorities were
reluctant to close several sites that were affected by the virus as
considered holy shear sites after being slow off the mark initially the Chinese
government responded with unprecedented measures which effectively involved
cutting off whom a province from the rest of China the Chinese sealed-off who
Bay from the rest of China hoping to prevent the contagion from spreading so
this expression under the cosh a cosh is like a piece of wood or metal which was
traditionally carried by could be by policemen even by a burglar but the
expression under the cosh means under real pressure
it means being involved in a very very difficult situation withering criticism
withering internal criticism internal just means it came from within the
country itself so Chinese people were criticizing China Iranian people
criticizing Iran if criticism is withering then it's very very strong
criticism the expression to get to grips with the problem if you get to grips
with the problem then you start to deal with it in an effective way
the expression slow off the mark a common expression in English it means
what it sounds like it means if you'll slow off the mark
then you react slowly this expression I think comes from athletics you know in
athletics when there is a sprint like the 100 meters and everybody starts with
their hands down on the track those are their marks and if you are slowed off
your mark in a sprint then you are the last person to react when the gun goes
to start the race unprecedented measures this means measures some measures here
are kind of policies official government actions and the word unprecedented means
that they really haven't been seen before or at least not in most of our
lifetimes if you cut off or seal off someone
from somewhere else then you make that place somewhere that you that doesn't
have access to the rest of the country anymore and the contagion is the disease
so at the time this was widely considered a move only a dictatorship
could make but this idea has just been dispelled as Italy has just announced
that it will quarantine 15 million people sealing off the north of Italy
from the rest of the country the virus seems to have a mortality rate of about
3% killing 3 out of every 100 people that it infects and it has taken a
terrible toll on older people the key question remains how many people will
eventually contract this virus the count so far is 100,000 and rising so if
something is this spelled an idea or notion is dispelled it is proven to be
untrue so the idea that only a dictatorship could take a step like this
was quickly proven untrue if something takes a terrible toll on people it has a
terrible effect on them the if you contract a virus that just needs that
you get the virus okay so that's the end of today's lesson I hope it was useful
lots of advanced vocabulary for you if you have any questions please put them
in the comment section below if you found the lesson useful please
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next time