科学美国人60秒 更多儿童感染新冠病毒、长途运输和疫苗里程碑（在线收听）

Josh Fischman: Hi, and welcome to COVID, Quickly, a Scientific American podcast series.

This is your fast-track update on the COVID pandemic. We bring you up to speed on the science behind the most urgent questions about the virus and the disease. We demystify the research and help you understand what it really means.

乔希·费斯曼：嗨，欢迎收看《新冠肺炎》，这是一个美国科学播客系列。

这是关于新冠疫情的快速更新。我们将向您介绍有关病毒和疾病的最紧迫问题背后的科学。我们揭开研究的神秘面纱，帮助你理解它的真正含义。

I’m Josh Fischman, Scientific American’s senior health editor. Tanya Lewis, usually here with me, has the day off.

Today: the giant Omicron wave looks like it may have peaked in the US. We’ll look at its unusual effects on two groups: children, and people with long haul COVID. And we’ll talk about a dramatic worldwide vaccine milestone.

我是Josh Fischman，《科学美国人》的高级健康编辑。坦尼娅·刘易斯通常和我在一起，休息一天。

今天：巨大的Omicron浪潮似乎已经在美国达到顶峰。我们将研究它对两组人的不寻常影响：儿童和长期新冠病毒携带者。我们将讨论一个引人注目的全球疫苗里程碑。

Omicron cases look like they are starting to drop in many US states. But they’re coming down from staggering heights. By mid-February, about 40 percent of the US population will be infected by the variant. That’s an estimate from Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who models infection rates.

Omicron病例在美国许多州似乎开始减少。但它们正从惊人的高度坠落。到2月中旬，约40%的美国人口将感染该变种。这是西雅图弗雷德·哈钦森癌症研究中心（Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center）的特雷弗·贝德福德（Trevor Bedford）的一项估计，他为感染率建模。

And that’s changed one important feature of the pandemic: Kids getting sick. With earlier variants, very few children got seriously ill. But recently an average of about 800 children have been admitted to the hospital with COVID every day. For kids under five, the hospitalization rates jumped to two to four times that of previous waves.

这改变了大流行的一个重要特征：儿童生病。在早期的变种中，很少有儿童患重病。但最近，平均每天约有800名儿童因新冠肺炎入院。对于5岁以下的儿童，住院率上升到前一波的2到4倍。

What’s going on? Has the virus mutated to become worse for kids? Probably not, scientists say. What we’re seeing is a consequence of the overall vast number of Omicron infections.

There’s a saying: a small fraction of a big number is still a big number. And that seems to be what’s going on with kids and COVID. A small portion of infected kids have always gotten seriously ill. Now we have a lot more infected kids. About a million in the first two weeks of January alone. So even if the portion of infections that need a trip to the hospital stays the same, the absolute number is going to jump up.

怎么回事？病毒是否发生了变异，对儿童的影响变得更严重？科学家说，可能不会。我们所看到的是大量奥米克罗感染的后果。

有一句谚语：一个大数字的一小部分仍然是一个大数字。儿童和新冠肺炎似乎就是这样。一小部分受感染的孩子总是得了重病。现在我们有了更多被感染的孩子。仅在1月的头两周就有大约100万人。因此，即使需要去医院就诊的感染比例保持不变，绝对数字也会激增。

The good news is that Omicron actually seems less severe than the earlier variant, Delta. Rong Xu, a data scientist at Case Western Reserve University, looked at health records of 80,000 kids and found the Omicron hospitalization rate was one percent. With Delta it was higher, at three percent. But again, with a lot more infected kids, that one percent turns into a bigger actual number.

好消息是，Omicron实际上似乎没有早期变种Delta严重。Case Western Reserve University的数据科学家徐荣（Rong Xu）查看了8万名儿童的健康记录，发现Omicron的住院率为1%。而德尔塔则更高，为3%。但再一次，随着更多受感染的孩子，这1%变成了一个更大的实际数字。

One thing about Omicron that may make it harder on kids is where this variant likes to hang out and multiply. Earlier versions of the virus went deep into the lungs. This one, however, seems to like the airway above the lungs, including the throat. Kids’ airways are tinier, so its easier for them to become clogged with mucus and inflamed with infection.

Omicron有一点可能会让孩子们更难接受，那就是这种变体喜欢在哪里逗留和繁殖。早期版本的病毒深入肺部。然而，这一个似乎像肺部上方的气道，包括喉咙。儿童的呼吸道更小，因此更容易被粘液堵塞，并因感染而发炎。

That leads to conditions like croup, which includes a wracking, barking cough that alarms parents. But again some good news: croup symptoms usually go away in about three days. Ibuprofen can reduce the pain and swelling.  Steroids help in more serious cases. It’s a familiar illness and doctors know how to treat it. Call one if your kid is having trouble breathing.

这会导致像克劳普这样的症状，包括一种让父母警觉的嘎嘎、吠叫的咳嗽。但还是有好消息：臀部症状通常会在三天内消失。布洛芬可以减轻疼痛和肿胀。类固醇在更严重的情况下有帮助。这是一种常见的疾病，医生知道如何治疗。如果你的孩子呼吸困难，打电话给一个。

The other group of people that’s probably going to be hit by Omicron’s huge numbers are long haulers, or people with what’s called long COVID. After their initial infection, these people struggle for months with a cluster of disabling symptoms. The list includes deep fatigue, shortness of breath, body pain, and headaches. It can be impossible to work or take care of your children, hard to cook and do other things that are basic parts of daily life.

另一类可能会受到Omicron巨大数量影响的人群是长途运输者，或者是患有长冠状病毒的人。在最初感染后，这些人数月来一直与一系列致残症状作斗争。其中包括深度疲劳、呼吸急促、身体疼痛和头痛。工作或照顾孩子是不可能的，做饭和做其他日常生活中基本的事情也是很困难的。

Doctors now estimate that 14 to 30 percent of people who get the coronavirus suffer from this syndrome.

And as with kids and Omicron, the percentage isn’t as important as the actual number. Because the wildly contagious variant has infected tens of millions of people, if only a small fraction of those who catch it develop long COVID, millions could be burdened with symptoms for months, if not years.

医生现在估计，14%到30%的冠状病毒感染者患有这种综合征。

和kids和Omicron一样，这个百分比没有实际数字重要。由于这种传染性极强的变种已经感染了数千万人，如果感染者中只有一小部分人出现长期新冠病毒，数百万人可能会在数月甚至数年内出现症状。

And just because many Omicron cases are mild doesn’t mean such people are immune from lingering symptoms. David Putrino, a rehabilitation medicine specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, told my colleague Melinda Wenner Moyer that people with mild illness do go on to get long COVID. A study in the U.K found that ongoing health problems were only weakly linked to severity of illness.

仅仅因为很多Omicron病例比较轻微，并不意味着这些人对持续的症状免疫。纽约市伊坎医学院的康复医学专家戴维·普特里诺告诉我的同事梅琳达·温纳·莫耶，患有轻度疾病的人确实会感染长期新冠病毒。英国的一项研究发现，健康问题与疾病的严重程度只有微弱的联系。

One thing that does reduce the frequency of long COVID is vaccination. Another U.K study showed that if people were fully vaccinated, and got a second, breakthrough infection, only five percent had symptoms after a month. But 11 percent of unvaccinated people did have serious symptoms.

有一件事确实降低了长期新冠肺炎的发病率，那就是接种疫苗。另一项英国研究显示，如果人们接种了疫苗，并有第二次突破性感染，一个月后只有百分之五的人有症状。但11%未接种疫苗的人确实有严重的症状。

In the U.S. a study found vaccinated people were seven to ten times less likely to report long COVID problems months after their initial diagnosis than were non-vaccinated people.

So just like with acute COVID, shots help eliminate the risk of a long haul.

在美国，一项研究发现，与未接种疫苗的人相比，接种疫苗的人在首次确诊后数月内报告长期新冠病毒问题的可能性要低7到10倍。

所以就像急性新冠病毒一样，注射疫苗有助于消除长期感染的风险。

Across the globe, there now have been 10 billion COVID vaccine shots given out, a major milestone this month. There are 20 different kinds of vaccines, and 4.8 billion people have received at least one dose. That is 60 percent of the population on our planet. That’s in just over a year, an unprecedented rollout of medicine.

在全球范围内，现在已经有100亿人接种了新冠疫苗，这是本月的一个重要里程碑。有20种不同的疫苗，48亿人至少接种了一剂。这是地球上60%的人口。仅仅一年多的时间里，这是一次前所未有的医学推广。

They have not quite been the shots heard around the world, however. Most of them have gone to people in richer countries. In poor countries, just 5.5. percent of people have received a full two-dose regimen. In the entire continent of Africa, more than 80 percent of the people have not gotten even one dose, according to a news story in Nature magazine.

然而，它们并不是全世界都能听到的枪声。他们中的大多数人都去了富裕国家。在贫穷国家，只有5.5%。%的人接受了完整的两剂方案。根据《自然》杂志的一篇新闻报道，在整个非洲大陆，超过80%的人甚至连一剂都没有。

Not only does that inequality put people in low-income countries at much higher risk of disease, it also raises the risk of new coronavirus variants evolving in these areas. And as the past two years have taught us, variants don’t stay at home.

这种不平等不仅使低收入国家的人们面临更高的疾病风险，还增加了这些地区新冠病毒变异的风险。过去两年的经验告诉我们，变种不会待在家里。

The way out of the pandemic is better global distribution. We’re getting there–10 billion doses is a big number–but we need to get there even faster.

摆脱大流行的办法是更好地在全球分布。我们正在实现这一目标——100亿剂是一个很大的数字——但我们需要更快地实现这一目标。

Now you’re up to speed. Thanks for joining us. Our show is produced by the inimitable Jeff DelViscio.

现在你掌握了最新进展。谢谢你加入我们。我们的节目是由不可模仿的Jeff DelViscio制作的。

Come back in two weeks for the next episode of COVID, Quickly! Stay safe and check out SciAm.com for updated and in-depth COVID news.

两周后再来看新冠肺炎的下一集，快点！注意安全并查看SciAm。com获取最新和深入的新冠病毒新闻。