如何预防冠状病毒？勤洗手可能比戴口罩管用
How to Avoid the Coronavirus? Wash Your Hands
ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
2020年1月31日
Americans are watching with alarm as a new coronavirus spreads in China and cases pop up in the United States. They are barraged with information about what kinds of masks are best to prevent viral spread. Students are handing out masks in Seattle. Masks have run out in Brazos County, Tex.
随着一种新型冠状病毒在中国传播，以及美国出现病例，美国人正在警觉地观察。同时，哪种口罩最能防止病毒传播的信息铺天盖地。西雅图的学生们在街头分发口罩。得克萨斯州布拉索斯县的口罩已经售罄。
Hang on.
别这么急。
I’ve worked as an emergency room physician. And as a New York Times correspondent in China, I covered the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003 during which a novel coronavirus first detected in Guangdong sickened more than 8,000 people and killed more than 800. My two children attended elementary school in Beijing throughout the outbreak.
我做过急诊室医生。在担任《纽约时报》驻华记者期间，我报道过2002年至2003年SARS暴发情况。那次也是一种新型冠状病毒，这个首先在广东发现的病毒致8000多人患病，800多人死亡。我的两个孩子在疫情暴发的自始至终都在北京上小学。
Here are my main takeaways from that experience for ordinary people on the ground:
下面是我从那次经历中得到的主要经验，供基层民众参考：
1. Wash your hands frequently.
1. 常洗手。
2. Don’t go to the office when you are sick. Don’t send your kids to school or day care when they are ill, either.
2. 生病了就不要去上班。你的孩子病了，也不要送他们去学校或日托所。
Notice I didn’t say anything about masks. Having a mask with you as a precaution makes sense if you are in the midst of an outbreak, as I was when out reporting in the field during those months. But wearing it constantly is another matter. I donned a mask when visiting hospitals where SARS patients had been housed. I wore it in the markets where wild animals that were the suspected source of the outbreak were being butchered, blood droplets flying. I wore it in crowded enclosed spaces that I couldn’t avoid, like airplanes and trains, as I traveled to cities involved in the outbreak, like Guangzhou and Hong Kong. You never know if the guy coughing and sneezing two rows ahead of you is ill or just has an allergy.
请注意，我压根没提口罩。如果你处于疫情暴发的中心，作为预防措施，随身携带口罩是有道理的，就像我在那几个月去进行现场报道时所做的那样。但总戴着口罩是另外一回事。我去收治SARS患者的医院时戴口罩。我在屠宰野生动物、动物血滴飞溅的市场里戴口罩（野生动物被怀疑是那次病毒暴发的源头）。我在自己无法避免的拥挤封闭空间里戴口罩，比如坐飞机或火车前往广州和香港等暴发疫情城市时。因为你无法确定坐在你前面两排的那个咳嗽、打喷嚏的人是病了还是过敏。
But outdoors, infections don’t spread well through the air. Those photos of people walking down streets in China wearing masks are dramatic but uninformed. And remember if a mask has, perchance, intercepted viruses that would have otherwise ended up in your body, then the mask is contaminated. So, in theory, to be protected maybe you should use a new one for each outing.
但在户外，传染病没有那么容易通过空气传播。照片上那些戴着口罩在中国街上行走的人看上去很引人注目，但他们并不真的了解情况。请记住，如果一个口罩可能拦截了本来会进入你身体的病毒的话，这个口罩本身已被污染。所以，从理论上讲，要想得到保护的话，也许你应该每次外出时使用一个新口罩。
The simple masks are better than nothing, but not all that effective, since they don’t seal well. For anyone tempted to go out and buy the gold standard, N95 respirators, note that they are uncomfortable. Breathing is more work. It’s hard to talk to people. On one long flight at the height of the outbreak, on which my few fellow passengers were mostly epidemiologists trying to solve the SARS puzzle, many of us (including me) wore our masks for the first couple of hours on the flight. Then the food and beverage carts came.
简易的口罩总比什么都不戴强，但其实并不那么有效，因为这种口罩的密封效果不好。对于那些动了买黄金标准N95呼吸防护口罩之心的人来说，请注意，戴这种口罩很不舒服。呼吸需要花更大的力气。与人说话也很费劲。在SARS疫情最严重时的一次长途飞行中，我的几位同机乘客大都是试图解开那个病毒谜团的流行病学家，我们许多人（包括我）在飞行的头几个小时都戴着口罩。然后，送餐和饮料的车来了，就再没人戴口罩了。
Though viruses spread through droplets in the air, a bigger worry to me was always transmission via what doctors call “fomites,” infected items. A virus gets on a surface — a shoe or a doorknob or a tissue, for example. You touch the surface and then next touch your face or rub your nose. It’s a great way to acquire illness. So after walking in the animal markets, I removed my shoes carefully and did not take them into the hotel room. And of course I washed my hands immediately.
虽然病毒通过空气中的飞沫传播，但对我来说，更大的担忧是通过医生们称为“染菌杂物”的传播。病毒污染了某个表面，例如鞋子、门把手或纸巾。你触摸了那个表面后，再用手摸你的脸或抠你的鼻子。这很容易让人得病。所以在去了活禽市场后，我小心地脱下自己的鞋子，不把它们带进旅馆房间。当然，还有马上洗手。
Remember, by all indications SARS, which killed about 10 percent of those infected, was a deadlier virus than the new coronavirus circulating now. So keep things in perspective.
请记住，从所有迹象来看，SARS病毒比目前正在流行的新型冠状病毒更致命，SARS导致了10%的感染者死亡。所以要恰当地看待事物。
Faced with SARS, many foreigners chose to leave Beijing or at least to send their children back to the United States. Our family stayed, kids included. We wanted them with us and didn’t want them to miss school, especially during what would be their final year in China. But equally important in making the decision was that the risk of getting SARS on an airplane or in the airport seemed greater than being smart and careful while staying put in Beijing.
面对SARS，许多外国人选择了离开北京，或至少把他们的孩子送回美国。我们全家都没走，包括孩子。我们想让孩子和我们在一起，不想让他们缺课，尤其是在他们在中国的最后一年里。但对做出这个决定同样重要的一个考虑是，在飞机上或机场感染SARS的风险似乎更高，高于呆在北京聪明小心地生活。
And we were: I stopped taking my kids to indoor playgrounds or crowded malls or delicious but densely packed neighborhood Beijing restaurants. Out of an abundance of caution we canceled a family vacation to Cambodia — though my fear was less about catching SARS on the flight than that one of the kids would have a fever from an ear infection upon our return at a border screening, and would be stuck in a prolonged quarantine in China. We instead took a vacation within China, where we carried masks with us but didn’t use them except on a short domestic flight.
我们没有走。但我不再带孩子去室内游乐场、拥挤的商场，以及美味但人多的北京餐馆。出于高度谨慎，我们取消了全家去柬埔寨的度假——虽然我主要不是担心在飞机上感染SARS，而是担心两个孩子中的一个在我们回来过边检时可能会因为耳炎而被查出发烧，从而被迫在中国做长期隔离。我们改为在中国国内度假，我们随身携带了口罩，但除了在国内的短程航班上，我们并没有戴。
In time, during the SARS outbreak, the government shut down theaters and schools in Beijing, as it is doing now in many Chinese cities because these viruses are more easily transmitted in such crowded places.
SARS暴发了一段时间后，政府关闭了北京的剧场和学校，正如政府目前在中国许多城市所做的那样，因为病毒在人多的地方更容易传播。
But there was also a lot of irrational behavior: Entering a village on the way to a hike near the Great Wall, our car was stopped by locals who had set up a roadblock to check the temperature of all passengers. They used an oral thermometer that was only minimally cleaned after each use. What a great way to spread a virus.
但SARS期间也有很多不理智的行为：在去长城附近远足的路上，我们的车刚开进一个村子，就被拦下来，村民在村口设置了路障，检查所有过往乘客的体温。他们用的是口腔体温计，每次使用后只进行了最低程度的消毒。这是传播病毒的极佳方法。
The International School of Beijing, where my children were students, was one of the few in the capital — perhaps the only one — that stayed open throughout the SARS outbreak, though the classes were emptier, since so many kids had departed to their home countries. It was a studied but brave move, since a parent at the school had gotten SARS at the very beginning of the outbreak on a flight back from Hong Kong. She recovered fine, but it was close to home and families were scared.
我孩子就读的北京国际学校是首都为数不多——也许是唯一的——SARS暴发期间一直没停课的学校，尽管由于许多孩子已返回原住国，课堂里的学生少了很多。这是北京国际学校经过研究做出的勇敢举动，鉴于该校一名家长在疫情暴发之初在从香港返回的航班上感染了SARS。她恢复得很好，但这个发生在家门口的病例让不少家庭都很害怕。
The school instituted a bunch of simple precautionary policies: a stern note to parents reminding them not to send a child to school who was sick and warning them that students would be screened for fevers with ear thermometers at the school door. There was no sharing of food at lunch. The teacher led the kids in frequent hand washing throughout the day at classroom sinks, while singing a prolonged “hand washing song” to ensure they did more than a cursory pass under the faucet with water only.
学校制定了一系列简单的预防措施：一份措辞严厉的通知书提醒家长不要送生病的孩子去学校，并警告家长，学校会在校门口用耳温计检查学生是否发烧。午餐时不许共享食物。老师每天带着孩子们在教室里的洗水池频繁洗手，还边洗边唱“洗手歌”，以确保洗手时间足够长，而不只是沾沾水就了事。
If a family left Beijing and came back, the child would have to stay at home for an extended period before returning to class to make sure they hadn’t caught SARS elsewhere.
如果一个家庭离开北京后又回来了，他们的孩子将不得不在家里呆上一段时间，然后才能回学校，以确保他们没有在其他地方感染SARS。
With those precautions in place, I observed something of a public health miracle: Not only did no child get SARS, but it seemed no student was sick with anything at all for months on end. No stomach bugs. No common colds. Attendance was more or less perfect.
采取了这些预防措施后，我看到了一个公共卫生奇迹：北京国际学校不仅没有孩子感染SARS，而且在几个月的时间里几乎没有学生生病。没有肠道感染。没有普通感冒。出勤率近乎完美。
The World Health Organization declared the SARS outbreak contained in July 2003. But, oh, that those habits persisted. The best first-line defenses against SARS or the new coronavirus or most any virus at all are the ones that Grandma and common sense taught us, after all.
世界卫生组织于2003年7月宣布SARS疫情得到了控制。但是，啊，那些好的习惯留存了下来。毕竟，抵抗SARS、新型冠状病毒，或大多数病毒的最佳一线防护措施是祖母辈的人和常识早就教会我们的。
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