科学美国人(翻译)：COVID第2集：大流行年份的教训 2021.3.10

Tanya Lewis: Hi, and welcome to Covid, Quickly, a new Scientific American podcast series!

坦妮娅·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）：大家好，欢迎收看Covid，这是《科学美国人》新播客系列！

Josh Fischman: 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.

Josh Fischman：这是您对COVID大流行的快速更新。我们会带您了解有关病毒和疾病的最紧迫问题背后的科学知识。我们揭开了研究的神秘面纱，并帮助您了解研究的真正含义。

Tanya Lewis: I’m Tanya Lewis.

谭雅·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）：我是谭雅·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）。

Josh Fischman: I’m Josh Fischman.

Josh Fischman：我是Josh Fischman。

Tanya Lewis: And we’re Scientific American’s senior health editors. Today, after a whole awful year of COVID, we’re going to talk about what we did wrong, and what we’ve learned to do right. We’ll also be correcting an idea that the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine is second-rate. And giving you news about some recent developments in COVID medicines.

Tanya Lewis： 我们是《科学美国人》的资深健康编辑。今天，在经历了整整一年的COVID之后，我们将谈论我们做错了什么，以及我们学会做对了什么。我们还将纠正一种新的强生疫苗是二流的想法。并向您提供有关COVID药物近期发展的新闻。

Josh Fischman: This isn’t a celebration kind of anniversary, but we’re at the one-year milestone of the pandemic. 

乔什·费施曼（Josh Fischman）： 这不是庆祝活动的周年纪念日，但我们处于这一流行病爆发的一年里程碑。 

Tanya Lewis: This week is the one-year anniversary of when the World Health Organization first called COVID a pandemic. This time last year, the world was going into lockdowns, borders were closing, and cities became ghost towns. Now, we’ve lost more than 2.6 million people worldwide to this awful disease, including more than half a million in the U.S.

坦妮娅·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）：这是世界卫生组织首次将COVID称为大流行病的一周年纪念日。去年的这个时候，世界正处于封锁之中，边界正在关闭，城市变成了鬼城。现在，我们已因这种可怕的疾病在全球损失了超过260万人，其中包括在美国超过一百万的人

Tanya Lewis: I wrote a story about some of the biggest mistakes in the U.S. pandemic response, from not taking the virus seriously, to confusing or inaccurate mask guidance, to failing to protect our most vulnerable people—whether it’s the elderly, essential workers, or people of color. These mistakes cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

丹妮·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）： 我写了一个故事，讲述美国大流行应对中的一些最大错误，从不认真对待病毒到混淆或不正确的口罩指导，到未能保护我们最脆弱的人群，无论是老年人，重要工人，或有色人种。这些错误使数十万人丧生。

Josh Fischman: It's been such a tragedy. Has it only been disaster after disaster?

乔希·费施曼（Josh Fischman）：这真是一场悲剧。难道只是一场又一场的灾难吗？

Tanya Lewis: There were some successes, too: Health care workers stepped up to treat people the best they could. Everyday people took initiative to help flatten the curve. But perhaps most impressive of all, several highly effective vaccines were developed in record time. And they all protect against severe disease and death. And now, millions of people are getting vaccinated every day all across the country. In fact, we’re already seeing dramatic declines in the numbers of elderly people hospitalized and dying from COVID in the U.S., which is at least in part due to the vaccines. You can read more about the biggest lessons from a year of the pandemic in my story on ScientificAmerican.com.

丹妮·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）： 也取得了一些成功：医护人员加紧治疗，力求做到最好。人们每天都在主动帮助平整曲线。但也许最令人印象深刻的是，在创纪录的时间内开发了几种高效疫苗。它们都可以防止严重的疾病和死亡。现在，全国各地每天都有数百万人接种疫苗。实际上，我们已经看到在美国因COVID住院和死亡的老年人数量急剧下降，这至少部分是由于疫苗的缘故。您可以在我在ScientificAmerican.com上的故事中阅读更多有关一年大流行中最大的教训的信息。

Tanya Lewis: Josh, not everyone is totally excited about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. What’s up with that?

丹妮·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）：乔什（Josh），并不是所有人都对强生疫苗感到非常兴奋。那是怎么回事？

Josh Fischman: People are paying a lot of attention to one number from the vaccine trials. 23. Overall the Modern/Pfizer vaccines seemed 23 percent more effective than the J&J one, which protects at about 72 percent. So some people--like the mayor of Detroit last week, who at first passed on using J&J in his city but changed his mind--seem to think J&J isn’t as good.

乔希·费施曼（Josh Fischman）： 人们对疫苗试验中的一个数字非常关注。23.总体而言，现代/辉瑞疫苗的效果似乎比强生公司的强效疫苗高出23％，强生公司的这种保护率约为72％。因此，有些人，例如上周底特律市长，起初在他所在的城市不再使用强生公司，但改变了主意，似乎认为强生公司并不那么好。

But here’s why 23 is a misleading. It’s probably much smaller in real life. The first vaccines were tested early last year, when there wasn’t a lot of virus around. The J&J version was tested in late fall, when there was a lot. A lot means, naturally, more people get sick. If Pfizer/Moderna was tested now, more people in those tests would get exposed, and the vaccine would show a smaller improvement than 23. Plus we know J&J works against some of the new virus variants, because it was tested after they appeared.

但是，这就是23产生误导的原因。在现实生活中可能要小得多。去年年初对第一批疫苗进行了测试，当时周围没有很多病毒。强生版本在深秋进行了测试，当时很多。很自然，这意味着更多的人会生病。如果现在对Pfizer / Moderna进行测试，则将有更多的人暴露在这种测试中，并且该疫苗的改良效果将比23种小。此外，我们知道强生对某些新病毒变体具有抗药性，因为它是在新的病毒变体出现后进行测试的。

And J&J prevented 100 percent of hospitalizations and deaths, and 85 percent of severe illness. That’s what you want in a vaccine in the middle of a deadly pandemic--to keep you from needing an ambulance ride to the ICU.

强生公司预防了100％的住院和死亡，以及85％的严重疾病。那就是您在致命大流行中需要的一种疫苗-避免让您需要急救车前往ICU。

Tanya Lewis: Good point. But what about drugs to treat you if you already HAVE the disease? That’s a different story, and sometimes a frustrating one, right?

坦妮娅·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）：好点。但是，如果您已经患有这种疾病，那么治疗您的药物又如何呢？那是一个不同的故事，有时是一个令人沮丧的故事，对吧？

Josh Fischman: Yep. There are not a lot of approved drug options for COVID. It’s been a year, and we’ve got the drug remdesivir, and two forms of monoclonal antibodies, to slow down the virus in your body. They work a bit, but the effects are not major. And there’s the sterioid dexamethasone, which helps hospitalized patients who need oxygen or are on ventilators. There’s not a lot else in the medicine cabinet.

乔希·费斯曼（Josh Fischman）：是的。批准COVID的药物选择不多。已经一年了，我们已经获得了雷姆昔韦韦和两种形式的单克隆抗体，可以减慢体内的病毒传播速度。它们可以起作用，但效果并不显着。还有一种类固醇地塞米松，可以帮助需要氧气或正在呼吸机上住院的患者。药柜里没有很多东西。

Tanya Lewis: Do you know of anything  new in the works?

丹妮·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）：您知道作品中有什么新作品吗？

Josh Fischman: Well, an NIH treatment panel recently approved another monoclonal antibody drug, Tocilizumab for hospitalized patients who are having real trouble breathing. The drug damps down inflammation--that’s what’s behind the breathing distress. But I talked with Lindsey Baden, an infectious disease doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who said the drug only works in patients who also get dexamethasone. So you still need both. He sounded a bit frustrated that there was not a clearer benefit to the drug.

Josh Fischman：好吧，NIH治疗小组最近批准了另一种单克隆抗体药物Tocilizumab用于真正呼吸困难的住院患者。这种药物可以减轻炎症-这就是呼吸窘迫的根源。但我与波士顿百翰妇女医院的传染病医生林赛·巴登（Lindsey Baden）进行了交谈，他说这种药物仅对也接受地塞米松治疗的患者有效。因此，您仍然需要两者。他对这种药物没有更明显的益处感到有些沮丧。

And other researchers share this frustration. Some are calling on the Biden administration to start supporting medicine development the way it supports vaccines. Biden did just sign an executive order telling the federal government to come up with a plan to test more medicines. That seems like a step in the right direction.
 
其他研究人员也有这种挫败感。一些人呼吁拜登政府以支持疫苗的方式开始支持药物开发。拜登只是签署了一项行政命令，要求联邦政府制定一项测试更多药物的计划。这似乎是朝正确方向迈出的一步。

Tanya Lewis: Now you’re up to speed. Thanks for joining us. 

丹妮·刘易斯（Tanya Lewis）：现在，您可以加快速度。感谢您加入我们。

Josh Fischman: Come back in two weeks for the next episode of COVID, Quickly! And check out sciam.com for updated and in-depth COVID news.

Josh Fischman： 两周后再回来观看COVID的下一集吧！并访问sciam.com，以获取最新的和深入的COVID新闻。