2020年经济学人 Covid-19:世界已做好准备(2)（在线收听）

On February 12th Susan Messonnier of America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said America should be prepared for the virus “to gain a foothold” in the country. Doctors in South Africa are on high alert, says Cheryl Cohen of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. More than 850 medics in all nine of the country’s provinces have been taught to spot the disease. The WHO is sending surgical masks, gowns and gloves to hospitals in more than 50 countries. It is teaching health workers across Africa how to use them to prevent covid-19 infections—and how to treat those who have the disease.

2月12日，美国疾病控制与预防中心的苏珊?梅索尼耶表示，美国应该为这种病毒在该国“站稳脚跟”做好准备。南非国家传染病研究所的谢丽尔·科恩说，南非医生处于高度戒备状态。南非9个省的850多名医护人员已经学会了如何认出这种疾病。世界卫生组织正在向50多个国家的医院运送外科口罩、手术服和手套。世卫组织正在教导非洲各地的卫生工作者如何使用它们来预防covid-19感染，以及如何治疗那些患有这种疾病的人。

Growing numbers of countries are screening passengers at airports and borders for signs of covid-19. But when a virus starts travelling around the world, says Michael Ryan of the who, its real point of entry is a busy emergency room or a doctor’s surgery. In the 2003 outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), another coronavirus which spread to more than 20 countries, about 30% of the 8,000 people infected were health-care workers. Many, if not most, of the SARS outbreaks around the world—from Toronto to Singapore— started in a hospital with a single patient who had been infected abroad.

越来越多的国家在机场和边境检查乘客是否有covid-19发病迹象。但是世界卫生组织的迈克尔·瑞恩表示，当一种病毒开始在世界范围内传播时，它真正的侵入点是繁忙的急诊室或医生的手术。2003年，另一种冠状病毒SARS(严重急性呼吸系统综合症)蔓延到20多个国家，8000名感染者中约有30%是医护人员。从多伦多到新加坡，在世界各地爆发的非典型肺炎中，(如果不能用大多数来形容)也有许多是在医院里由在国外感染的病人引起的。

In countries where covid-19 cases are still rare doctors are, for now, trying to identify suspected patients by asking those with a cough and fever about recent travel to countries with outbreaks of the disease and then testing them. In America if patients test negative for seasonal flu, laboratories are starting to test for covid-19 (the country has so far identified 29 cases).

在那些仍然很少出现19例脊髓灰质炎病例的国家，医生目前正试图通过询问咳嗽和发烧患者最近到爆发这种疾病的国家旅行的情况，然后进行检测，从而确定疑似患者。在美国，如果病人对季节性流感检测呈阴性，实验室就开始对covid-19进行检测(到目前为止，美国已经确认了29例)。