2020年经济学人 从政治角度看疫情(2)（在线收听）

The uncertainty has many sources. One is that sars-cov-2 and the disease it causes, covid-19, are not fully understood. Another is over the status of the pandemic. In each region or country it tends to proliferate rapidly undetected. By the time testing detects cases in one place it will be spreading in many others, as it was in Italy, Iran and South Korea. By the time governments shut schools and ban crowds they may be too late.

不确定性有很多来源。一是SARS-CoV-2和它引起的疾病covid-19，还没有被完全了解。另一个是关于流行病的状态。在每个地区或国家，流行病往往迅速扩散而不被发现。当在一个地方检测到病例时，它将在其他许多地方传播，就像在意大利、伊朗和韩国一样。等到政府关闭学校，禁止人群进入时，可能就太晚了。

China’s solution, endorsed by the who, was to impose a brutal quarantine, bolstered by mass-testing and contact tracing. That came at a high human and economic cost, but new infections have dwindled. This week, in a victory lap, President Xi Jinping visited Wuhan, where the pandemic first emerged. Yet uncertainty persists even in China, because nobody knows if a second wave of infections will rise up as the quarantine eases.

中国的解决方案得到了世界卫生组织的认可，即实施残酷的隔离，并辅以大规模检测和接触者追踪。这付出了高昂的人力和经济代价，但新的感染人数已经减少。本周，中国国家主席习近平考察了最先出现疫情的武汉。然而，即使在中国，不确定性依然存在，因为没有人知道随着隔离的放松，第二波感染是否会上升。

In democracies leaders have to judge if people will tolerate China’s harsh regime of isolation and surveillance. Italy’s lockdown is largely self-policed and does not heavily infringe people’s rights. But if it proves leakier than China’s, it may be almost as expensive and a lot less effective.

在民主国家，领导人必须判断人民是否能接受高强度的隔离。意大利的封锁在很大程度上是自我监督，并没有严重侵犯人民的权利。但是，如果事实证明措施漏洞更大，那么在成本可能几乎同样高昂的情况下，但是效果要差得多。

Efficacy also depends on the structure and competence of health-care systems. There is immense scope for mixed messages and inconsistent instructions about testing and when to stay isolated at home. Every health system will be overwhelmed. Places where people receive very little health care, including refugee camps and slums, will be the most vulnerable. But even the best-resourced hospitals in rich countries will struggle.

效力还取决于卫生保健系统的结构和能力。有关检测以及何时在家隔离的混合消息和前后矛盾的指令在很大的范围都存在。各个卫生系统都将不堪重负。那些几乎没有医疗保健的地方，包括难民营和贫民窟，将会很艰难。