3 Reasons Why Covid-19 is the Ultimate Translation Services Test

The emergence of the coronavirus in December 2019 presented a major challenge to humankind. Not since the deadly 1918 flue pandemic had the world experienced a pandemic of Covid-19’s magnitude. In the months following the beginning of the outbreak, countries around the world quickly mobilized to contain the virus by purchasing masks and other personal protective equipment, creating safety protocol for restaurants and businesses, and beginning the process of developing a vaccine to inoculate their citizens. However, most people (including policymakers) forget about the importance of translation services to the fight against the coronavirus. In fact, proper investment in government translation services could prove vital to preventing the further spread of the virus. Here are three reasons why Covid-19 is the ultimate translation services test:

1. The Inadequacy of Machine Translation Services in the Coronavirus Era

Clear communication is essential to public health in the midst of a pandemic. Keeping the public informed of developments and of the latest health regulations helps to both mitigate the spread of the virus and calm people’s fears. Yet for many in the era of the coronavirus, accurate information cannot always be found due to the shortcomings of Google Translate. Because many websites rely on machine website translation that lack understanding of linguistic nuance, many people cannot read public service announcements or news reports about the virus. As a result, members of certain language groups have been left in the dark regarding the coronavirus.

2. The Scale of the Translation Services Provided by Government Agencies and NGOs

Nevertheless, certain non-profit organizations and government agencies have prioritized investment in translation services to fight the coronavirus pandemic. For instance, according to a recent article in the popular science magazine WIRED, the Indian tribal advocacy group Adivasi Lives Matter employed a global translator to translate coronavirus fact sheets into the different tribal languages of India. Similarly, the WIRED article mentioned how the King County government in Seattle, Washington recently started to translate documents related to coronavirus mitigation efforts into the different languages spoken by its linguistically and culturally diverse. Governments across the globe have also begun to invest in video translation efforts. For example, the government of the Northern Territory in Australia provided coronavirus safety videos in the languages of its First Nations indigenous population.

3. Beyond Translation Services: The Problem of Interpreting

Obviously, the efforts described above represent only a fraction of what world governments are doing to counter the coronavirus threat. Understandably, there is still a great deal of work to be done beyond website translation services, especially in the area of press conference interpreting. As mentioned in WIRED, the South African government has taken flak for conducting its coronavirus briefings only in English despite the fact that the country has over 10 official languages. In a similar fashion, state governments across the U.S. took criticism for failing to provide an ASL interpreter for meetings and press briefings related to the coronavirus. Hopefully, in time, all world governments will realize the importance of translation services and hire language service companies in order to carefully articulate the coronavirus threat to their citizenry.