节选翻译《张文宏：全球疫情在今夏结束概率很低，不感染的秘诀有一个关键点》_风闻

       张文宏教授又发表对病毒的看法了，这次是人民网的人民上海会客厅对他的访谈，时间3月25号。和3月17号他对德国留学生支招那次比，这次他解释了意大利死亡率高的原因，还提到了病毒是否会长期存在，疫苗的进度等，值得一看。这次我仍然是节选了最有代表性的几个问题翻译成英语。上次我是百度机翻以后深度修改，这次干脆直接从头手工翻译，因为机翻修改的工作量其实差不多了。

       观察者网原文：https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2020_03_25_543778.shtml

Professor Zhang Wenhong: The COVID-19 Outbreak Will Not Go Away With the Summer Coming

Professor Zhang Wenhong is the head of the expert panel for COVID-19 treatment in Shanghai, and Director of the Infectious Disease Department of the Fudan University Affiliated Huashan Hospital in Shanghai. In this interview occurred on March 25th, 2020, he talked about several things that many people are very concerned about with the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, such as the time it will last, the high mortality rate in Italy, effect of hot weather on the virus, and the progress on a vaccine.    

Journalist: The COVID-19 outbreak in China has been contained and the situation is getting better, but we now face a high risk of imported cases since the pandemic has broken loose outside of China. As a first tier mega city, Shanghai is under a particularly high pressure. How will Shanghai respond to the new threat? How should the citizens protect themselves?

Professor Zhang: The Chinese people had been in a very difficult time, but with a whole country backing up Hubei province, we’ve had the pandemic under control in less than 2 month. The most difficult time is in the past now as new local cases have almost stopped appearing. However, we still face a big uncertainty as Europe suddenly becomes the epicenter of the pandemic. Our country now is under the threat of imported cases. It’s also the biggest challenge for Shanghai. We must hold our ground and prepare for a second wave.

Our earlier forecast was that the COVID-19 outbreak would end in April, giving some time for the aftermath to subside in the world, in June we’d see a final closure globally. With the new development in Europe growing out of hand, however, the probability of the outbreak ending in summer is very low. Especially the “herd immunity” concept brought up by some European countries, which is a very painful process that will cause a huge infection count—60% to 70% of population infected in a long period of time—if made into practice, the outbreak will most likely lasts through the year. I don’t expect the medical workers to be able to take a break any time soon.

For ordinary people, it’s important to take protective measures. There are ways that can keep you uninfected. The crucial way of infection is physical contact. No contact, no infection. All our cases from the outbreak were infected through close contact 

How to avoid close contact in work place? Social distancing, wearing masks, and washing hands frequently. You can do those, you basically eliminate the risk of infection. Some people worry about airborne infection, but in fact, this stays a hypothesis since most of the cases in China were infected by close contact.

Journalist: The current situation in Italy is horrifying. With a huge amount of confirmed positives and a high mortality rate, rumor has it that the viral components in Italy is not the same as that in China, which makes the virus in Italy more deadly. Can you verify?

Professor Zhang: We haven’t seen clear data of the sequence analysis of the virus in Italy, so we can’t say it’s more deadly. The mortality rate was also high in Wuhan at the beginning, but it has lowered since then, without changes to the viral components as we know it, which can only be verified by the genetic sequencing result. The main reason for high mortality rate in Italy is the number of severe cases exceeding the treatment capacity of the hospitals. 20% severe case to total case ratio means 5000 severe patients if there are 20000 patents in total. That is too many, and will increase even more while the outbreak develops.

Let’s look at the timeline. The first 3 cases in Italy were all imported cases. After that, no new cases emerged for the next 2 weeks. Just when Italy thought that was it, the situation was escalating. On February 22nd, the 4th COVID-19 patient, a 38 years old Italian male, was found positive in Lombardy. This man hadn’t been in China recently. In the end of January, he went out to eat with a friend, who just traveled back from Shanghai but tested negative of COVID-19. More than 70 following patients in Italy can all be linked back to the 4th patient. This means a “super spreader” has created a chain of infection that caused the virus to spread in multiple communities in Italy. On top of that, the Italians’ reluctance to wearing masks and putting on quarantine along with their frequent social activities didn’t help the situation. The number of the infected went from a few dozen to a few hundred, then it increased exponentially.

How terrible is increasing exponentially? Let’s say you have a sheet of paper that is big enough. If every time you fold it in half the thickness of the paper doubles, the thickness will be the same as the distance from the earth to the moon when you fold it 46 times. That is how shocking it is. The number of infection cases in Italy could be a very large figure in April and May. It all depends on how effective the Italian responses are. 

Journalist: There used to be speculations that the virus will become less infectious when temperature rises in summer. Now the virus has been spread to both northern and southern spheres on earth, while summer is coming in the northern sphere, the southern sphere will enter winter, and does this mean the coronavirus will be here to stay?

Professor Zhang: Many pandemics lasted over years in history, such as the H1N1 in 2009. For now, the situation in Singapore and India is not serious. That’s why there are speculations that the virus will be vulnerable in summer. Although the 400 cases in Malaysia implies that the temperature may not be the only factor, the low mortality rate in these countries also implies that the hot weather may help prevent the severe cases to develop. That being said, the weather may have little effect in stopping the virus from spreading, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many confirmed cases in countries of low latitudes, such as Malaysia. Maybe it will be easier for us to fight the virus in summer, but as the outbreak developing in Europe, many countries are not actively identifying infected patients showing mild or no symptoms, who may still be spreading the disease somewhere, meaning the situation will go on for a while. The pandemic may not disappear in summer, and may come back in winter as a second wave.

Will the COVID-19 stay for good? If it develops a decreased lethality, the virus may cause infection once in a while, with mild symptoms and little chance of death, the human body will adapt to it in time, and the virus will be able to live with humans. However, if the virus evolves to be more lethal, it will be eliminated by humans, because the infected developing serious conditions will get treatment and be put on quarantine, the virus will have less chance of spreading. Now it’s still early to say which way it will go. We’ll see in one year or two.

Journalist: People are very concerned about the progress of vaccines. Can you give some insights on this?

Professor Zhang: China is making progress on the vaccines pretty fast, and we have reached some milestones. However, we cannot rush the process no matter how urgent we need it. A strict procedure such as animal test, creating antibody, clinical study on human body, and finally test on humans will have to be followed without skipping any steps. The vaccine will be applied on people, so its safety needs to be guaranteed. If everything goes perfectly well, it will still take at least a year. By that time, there may have no cases left in China. Where shall we find people for the clinical tests then? Will foreign countries accept clinical test of a Chinese made vaccine on their land? These are questions I don’t have answers. Therefore, the vaccine is more of a precaution for the future, since nobody knows whether there will be another wave coming.