【齐心抗疫】天气变暖能否消灭新冠病毒？

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Can Coronavirus Be Crushed By Warmer Weather?
天气变暖能否消灭冠状病毒？

The city of Wuhan, epicenter of the current coronavirus outbreak.
武汉，此次冠状病毒爆发的中心

                               
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Jia Yu/Getty Images
图 | 华盖创意 余佳（音译）

There's a seasonality to many viruses. Flu and cold viruses tend to peak in winter months, then die down with warmer weather.

许多病毒具有季节性的特点。冬季往往是流感和感冒病毒的高发期，然而随着气候渐暖，这些病毒也会随之消失。

Will the newly identified coronavirus and the disease it causes — COVID-19 — follow a similar pattern?

那么，新发现的冠状病毒及其引发的疾病—2019-冠状病毒（COVID-19）—也是如此吗？

Before that question can be answer, let's consider how seasons and temperature influence the spread of viruses.

在回答这个问题之前，我们先来思考一下季节和温度是如何影响病毒传播的。

"Coronaviruses tend to be associated with winter because of how they're spread," explains Elizabeth McGraw, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University. For one thing, in winter months, people may cluster together more indoors, increasing the number of folks at risk of becoming infection by someone who's contagious.

“由于病毒的传播方式，我们一般会将冠状病毒与冬季联系在一起。”宾夕法尼亚州大学传染病动力学中心主管伊丽莎白·麦克格劳（Elizabeth McGraw）解释道。一方面，比起以往，人们在冬季时更倾向于在室内扎堆活动，这就极大地增加了普通人被患病者传染的风险。


In addition, there's the matter of transmission. Viruses spread through respiratory droplets that are released when an infected person coughs or sneezes. And the droplets are more likely to spread under certain conditions. "What we know is that they're [the droplets] are better at staying afloat when the air is cold and dry, " says McGraw. "When the air is humid and warm, [the droplets] fall to the ground more quickly, and it makes transmission harder."

另一方面，病毒的传播也是问题所在。病毒是可以通过感染者在咳嗽或打喷嚏时呼出的飞沫进行散播的。同时，在特定条件下飞沫的传播能力也有可能会变得更强。麦克格劳表示：“根据我们目前所掌握的信息，飞沫在寒冷干燥的空气中漂浮的时间更久。而在空气温暖湿润的情况下时，飞沫会较快落地并由此阻断病毒的传播。”

Not every coronavirus hews to the same rules. For instance, the one that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has not shown the capacity to spread easily from person to person, says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security: "It doesn't have that seasonality because it's really an animal to human virus and not something that that you see causing disease in a seasonal pattern."

然而，并非所有的冠状病毒都遵循同样的规律。例如，引起中东呼吸综合征（MERS）的病毒并不具备人传人的高传染性。来自约翰·霍普金斯大学健康安全中心的传染病医生、高级学者阿梅什·阿达利亚（Amesh Adalja）认为：“这种病毒并不具备季节性特征，因为它其实是一种经动物传人的病毒，并不是我们认知里的有季节性特征的致病病毒。”


But he says COVID-19 seems more akin to the seasonal cold. And up to a third of common colds are caused by coronaviruses.

但他同时也表示，2019-新型冠状病毒更像季节性感冒。高达三分之一的普通感冒其实是由冠状病毒引起的。

“We’ve seen, basically, explosive spread inside China of person-to-person transmission, so — in that sense — it really is behaving like a common-cold causing coronavirus,” says Adalja.

“总体而言，我们已知中国境内出现了爆发性的人传人现象。从这个层面上来说，从普通感冒演变为冠状病毒特别像是它的爆发轨迹。”阿达利亚说道。

For that reason, he says, “I do think seasonality will play a role. As this outbreak unfolds and we approach spring and summer, I do think we will see some tapering off of cases.”

基于上述理由，在他看来：“季节性特征的确可以算是一个影响因素。随着疫情爆发，春夏之际也已临近，我相信在不久的将来病例会呈现出逐步递减的趋势。”

So as China and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere head into spring, the virus could begin to peter out or plateau. But the southern half of the globe is headed into fall and winter “so we may see this [virus] have increased transmission” in parts of the southern hemisphere, says Adalja — for example, in Australia. That’s similar to what happens with the flu each year.

因此，随着中国及北半球的其他地区步入春季，该病毒可能会逐渐消失或趋于稳定。然而，此时的南半球却即将步入秋冬。“因此，以澳大利亚为例，该病毒在南半球许多地区的传染率可能会增高，”阿达利亚表示。这与每年出现流感病毒的情况所差无几。

“It’s not unreasonable to make the assumption” that cases will die down come spring, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NPR. “We hope when the weather gets warmer it will diminish a bit,” he says.

一旦入春，感染病例就会减少——“这样的假设也合情合理。”美国国家过敏与传染病研究所所长安东尼·福西博士（Dr.Anthony Fauci）接受美国国家公共电台（NPR）采访时表示“希望天气转暖之后病例会稍微减少一些。”

But he sounds a cautionary note: "However, we don't know that about this [new] coronavirus. We don't have [a] backlog of history."

但是他也告诫称：“我们对这种新型冠状病毒知之甚少，也没有案例可以拿来参考。”

Dr. Nancy Messionnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sounds a similar note when it comes to predicting a slowdown of cases with warmer weather. "I think it's premature to assume that," she said during a call with reporters on Wednesday. "We haven't been through even a single year with this pathogen."

谈到天气变暖是否会影响病例下降时，美国国家疾病控制和预防中心的南希·梅森尼尔博士（Dr. Nancy Messionnier）以同样的口吻做出预测：“我认为，现在下结论还为时过早”，她在周三接受记者电话采访时称，“往年我们从未接触过这样的病原体。”

Given the uncertainty, public health officials say they must plan for the unexpected and for the possibility that the outbreak drags on regardless of the weather.

也正是因为这种不确定性，公共卫生官员表示，无论天气状况如何，他们都必须为应对意外情况或打疫情持久战的可能性做好准备。



原文链接：https://www.npr.org/sections/goa ... d-by-warmer-weather

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