流行病模型预测了美国巨大的死亡人数

流行病模型预测了美国巨大的死亡人数

At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator, laid out a grim vision of the future.

在周二的白宫新闻发布会上，冠状病毒应对协调员黛博拉·比尔克斯博士描绘了未来的严峻前景。

The best computer models, she said, predict that between 100.000 and 200.000 Americans will die from COVID-19 during the coming months, even if the country continues the strict social distancing measures that most states have adopted. Relaxing those restrictions would send the toll much higher.

她说，最好的计算机模型预测，在未来几个月里，将有10万到20万美国人死于COVID-19.即使美国继续执行大多数州已经采取的严格的社会隔离措施。放松这些限制将使死亡人数大幅上升。

It would be a shocking escalation in the epidemic's death toll. So far, the epidemic has claimed fewer than 4.000 lives in the United States, and roughly 40.000 worldwide.

这将是流行病死亡人数的一个令人震惊的升级。到目前为止，这种流行病已经在美国夺去了不到4000人的生命，在全世界夺去了大约40000人的生命。

Yet when Birx was pressed about whether this dark future is inevitable, or can still be avoided, she equivocated. "We really believe and hope every day that we can do a lot better than that," she said.

然而，当比尔克斯被问及这个黑暗的未来是否是不可避免的，还是仍然可以避免的时候，她含糊其辞。她说:“我们每天都相信并希望我们能做得更好。”

The models – in particular, a model developed by Chris Murray, at the University of Washington – assume that the future of the epidemic will play out much like the recent past, Birx said. "If you ask Chris Murray, he would say he's using the information coming out of New York and New Jersey and applying that to potentially other states having the same outcomes."

比尔克斯说，这些模型——特别是由华盛顿大学的克里斯·默里开发的一个模型——假设流行病的未来将与最近的过去非常相似。”如果你问克里斯·默里，他会说他正在利用来自纽约和新泽西州的信息，并将其应用到其他可能有相同结果的州。”

Birx is hoping that New York and New Jersey turn out to be unusual. Some states, like Washington and California, have managed to avoid the spikes in coronavirus infections that overwhelmed New York City. If other states manage to duplicate that experience, it would change the model's assumptions about the epidemic's trajectory.

比尔克斯希望纽约和新泽西的情况不一样。一些州，如华盛顿和加利福尼亚州，已经成功地避免了像在纽约的冠状病毒感染的激增，这使纽约市不堪重负。如果其他国家能够复制这种经验，它将改变模型对流行病轨迹的假设。

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also says he's hoping for fewer deaths – but people should prepare for what the models now predict. "Is it going to be that much? I hope not. But being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves, that that is a possibility," he said.

美国国家过敏和传染病研究所所长安东尼·福奇博士也表示，他希望死亡人数能够减少，但是人们应该对模型所预测的情况有所准备。“会有那么多吗?”我希望不是这样。但现实一点，我们需要做好准备，这是可能的。”