The novel coronavirus can remain on surfaces like elevator buttons for up to five days. TUCHONG
There is probably nothing scarier than fighting an enemy that you cannot see. The novel coronavirus is one of these invisible enemies, and it has done quite a bit of damage. Ever since it was first spotted in Wuhan, Hubei in December, it has infected more than 44,000 people in China and other places in the world. As of Feb 11, 1,113 people were reported killed in China.
和看不见的敌人作战，或许没有比这更可怕的事了。新型冠状病毒便是一个看不见的敌人，它造成了太多伤害。自去年12月湖北武汉首次发现新型冠状病毒以来，中国以及全球多地超过4.4万人已被感染。据报道，截至2月11日，中国累计死亡病例1113例。
But even if we cannot see the virus, we know how it behaves and spreads around, which is just like most other viruses. “The number one thing you can do to prevent any respiratory illness is to practice good personal hygiene,” Tom Moorcroft, co-founder of Origins Of Health, a US-based health center, told CNET. And that includes wearing a mask and washing hands.
但就算我们无法用肉眼看到这种病毒，我们也能了解它与大多数病毒类似的症状和传播途径。“预防呼吸系统疾病，你能做的首要之事便是保持良好的个人卫生，”美国医疗中心“健康之源”的联合创始人汤姆·默克罗夫特在接受科技资讯网采访时如此表示。这就包括了戴口罩和勤洗手。
By wearing a mask, you keep yourself away from the droplets coughed and sneezed by infected people. These droplets can spread the virus – as far as two meters!
佩戴口罩能够阻挡感染人群咳嗽、打喷嚏时所产生的飞沫。这些飞沫能够传播病毒——传播距离最远可达两米。
But these droplets don’t stay in the air for long before falling and landing on surfaces, like tables or smartphones. They can also be transmitted to elevator buttons and door knobs by our hands. And here is where washing hands becomes crucial, because, according to Jiang Rongmeng, a member of China’s National Health Commission expert group, the novel coronavirus can stay alive for quite a long time on smooth surfaces.
但这些飞沫不会在空气中停留多久，很快便会沉降到桌子、手机等物体表面。它们还能通接触、电梯按钮和门把手进行传播。国家卫生健康委专家组成员蒋荣猛也表示，新型冠状病毒在光滑的物体表面可存活相当长的一段时间，因此，勤洗手至关重要。
“Given the right temperature – around 20 C, and the right humidity – around 50 percent, they might even stay alive for up to five days,” Jiang said in a news conference on Feb 4.
“如果温度、湿度合适 —— 比如说20度的环境，湿度50%，它们可以存活达到五天，” 蒋荣猛在2月4日的一场新闻发布会上如此表示。
A new discovery about the virus makes it even more necessary to keep these hygienic habits even if you don’t think you’ve interacted with anyone infected. According to People’s Daily, there is evidence that the virus might be contagious even before patients start showing symptoms. “The consequence is that there are no public health means to sort out or to identify people at risk of transmitting, because they don’t even know that they’re ill yet,” Gerard Krause, head of the Department for Epidemiology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection in Germany, told Al Jazeera.
一项关于新型冠状病毒的新发现令这些卫生习惯变得更有必要，即便你自认为从未与感染者有所接触。据《人民日报》报道，有证据表明，新型冠状病毒在患者未出现症状前或已具备传染性。“造成的结果就是，没有公共健康措施能够筛选或者甄别出有传播风险的人群，因为这些人也不知道自己已经生病了，”德国赫尔姆霍茨传染病研究中心流行病学部负责人杰拉德·克劳斯在接受半岛电视台采访时如此表示。
Indeed, infectious diseases can be scary. But if there is anything positive that we can take away from this epidemic, it’s that we’ve developed better hygienic habits. After all, washing our hands is actually what we should be doing every day.
传染性疾病确实很可怕。但这次疫情还是给我们带来了积极的变化 —— 大家都养成了更好的卫生习惯。毕竟，洗手正是我们每天都应该做到的事。
