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| Deaths from Covid-19 in the United States are the lowest they’ve been since March 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data tracker. Case rates have similarly plummeted, though infections have become harder to track because of the widespread availability of at-home rapid tests; many of the monitoring systems that were set up at the beginning of the pandemic have also been wound down. | 根据美国疾病控制和预防中心的数据追踪，目前美国Covid-19病亡数处于自2020年3月以来的最低水平。患病率也同样大幅下降，尽管由于家庭快速检测的普及，感染已变得更难追踪；在大流行开始时建立的许多监测系统也已逐步关闭。 |
| Is this finally the beginning of the end of the pandemic, or just another spring ebb before a new variant initiates a summer wave? (For the past two years, numbers have fallen between March and June, before rising in July.) The New York Times spoke with epidemiologists and infectious disease experts to gauge how they’re thinking about this particular juncture in the pandemic — what the risk is right now, what precautions they’re continuing to take, who is still getting severely ill and dying, and what the future may bring. | 到头来，这究竟是大流行结束的开始，抑或仅仅是新变种引发夏季浪潮之前的又一次春季退潮？（在过去两年中，数字都是在3月至6月期间下降，然后在7月上升。）《纽约时报》采访了流行病学家和传染病专家，评估他们如何看待大流行的这个特定时刻——目前的风险是什么，他们将继续采取哪些预防措施，哪些人仍在罹患重症和死亡，以及未来可能发生什么。 |
| Spring reprieve | 春季的缓和 |
| Experts agree that the risk from Covid-19 right now is low, and spring 2023 feels different from previous years. | 专家们一致认为，目前的新冠风险很低，2023年的春天与前两年不同。 |
| “We’ve reached a stage of stability where people are making choices to return their lives to something closer to normal,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, the chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “And I think that makes sense. Cases are relatively low; deaths are relatively low.” | “我们已经达到了一个稳定阶段，人们正在做出选择，让他们的生活恢复到更接近正常的状态，”加州大学旧金山分校医学系主任罗伯特·瓦赫特博士说。“而且我认为这是有道理的。病例相对较少；死亡率相对较低。” |
| The biggest reason for this improvement is that virtually everyone in the United States has some form of immunity now, whether from vaccines, a previous infection or both. Medications like Paxlovid have also significantly reduced the risk of serious illness. | 这种改善的最大原因是现在美国几乎每个人都具有某种形式的免疫力，无论是来自疫苗、过去的感染或两者皆有。像Paxlovid这样的药物也显著降低了重症的风险。 |
| Dr. Taison Bell, an infectious disease physician at the University of Virginia, said that in his intensive care unit, “we will see an occasional Covid-19 case, but we’re not seeing a lot of cases that are leading to people being on the ventilator.” Now, most of the people Dr. Bell is treating for Covid are older and either have pre-existing conditions that compromise their immune systems or lung function, or they haven’t been vaccinated. It’s essential, he said, that people who are at high risk for severe infection get a bivalent booster if they haven’t already (a second dose was also recently authorized for this group). | 弗吉尼亚大学传染病医师泰森·贝尔说，在他的重症监护室，“我们会偶尔看到一例新冠病例，但我们并没有看到很多用上呼吸机的病例。”现在，大多数贝尔正在治疗的新冠肺炎患者年龄较大，要么已经存在损害免疫系统或肺功能的既往疾病，要么没有接种疫苗。他说，属于感染高风险人群的人接种二价加强剂很重要，如果他们还没有接种的话（最近，针对该群体的第二剂也已获批准）。 |
| Another reason things are different this spring is that there have been no new, game-changing variants — “no new Greek letters,” as Dr. Wachter put it — for the last year and a half. Variations of Omicron that have some immune-evading properties, such as the current dominant strain, XBB.1.5, have emerged, but Paxlovid and vaccines are still effective against them. | 今年春天情况与以往有所不同的另一个原因是，在过去一年半的时间里，没有出现改变游戏规则的新变体——正如瓦赫特所说的那样，“没出现新的希腊字母。”具有一些免疫逃避特性的奥密克戎变异株已经出现，例如目前的优势株XBB.1.5，但Paxlovid和疫苗对它们仍然有效。 |
| Despite the good news, experts are still taking some precautions. Because while the numbers are headed in the right direction, roughly 100,000 Americans are still being infected with Covid-19 every week, and more than 150 are dying from the infection every day. | 尽管有这样的好消息，专家们仍然采取了一些预防措施。因为尽管数字在朝着好的方向发展，但美国每周仍有大约10万人感染新冠，每天有超过150人死于这种感染。 |
| Where, and why, experts are still being careful | 专家在哪些方面仍然保持谨慎，为什么要这样 |
| Dr. Wachter continues to wear a mask in most crowded indoor settings, like on an airplane or in a museum, he said, but not if he needs to pop into a store quickly. | 瓦赫特说，在大多数拥挤的室内环境里他还是会戴口罩，比如在飞机上或者博物馆里，但如果只是短暂地进入商店买东西，就不会戴口罩。 |
| His main motivation is wanting to avoid long Covid. “Unlike the way I felt two or three years ago, I have no fear that I’m going to die of this thing,” he said. “But I think long Covid is very real. My wife has a mild version of it, so I see it up close and personal.” | 他这样做主要是为了避免长新冠。“与两三年前不同，我现在并不担心自己会死于这种病，”他说。“但我认为长新冠是真的。我太太就有症状轻微的长新冠，所以我得以近距离地观察。” |
| Caitlin Rivers, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who has young children, said that she stopped wearing a mask at the grocery store or in the office, though she still dons one on public transportation. She said that the disruptions Covid and other respiratory infections caused this winter, like missing school and work, were worth avoiding. | 约翰霍普金斯大学布隆伯格公共卫生学院的助理教授凯特琳·里弗斯有年幼的孩子。她说，在超市或办公室里她就不戴口罩，但在公共交通工具上还是戴。她说，今年冬天新冠肺炎和其他呼吸道感染造成的干扰，比如缺课和旷工，本应该是可以避免的。 |
| The experts especially urged people to keep taking precautions, such as masking and testing before big indoor gatherings, if they or a loved one are at high risk. | 专家们特别敦促，如果自己或有至亲存在高风险的话，就应该继续采取预防措施，比如戴口罩，以及在大型室内聚会前进行检测。 |
| “I think we have to do what we can to mitigate risk, not just for ourselves, but also we live in a community,” said Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician who still tests herself before going to events. “I don’t know if the person next to me is immunocompromised, and I don’t want to give them Covid.” | “我认为我们必须尽我们所能来降低风险，不仅是为了我们自己，也是因为我们生活在一个社区里，”传染病医生克鲁蒂卡·库帕利说道，她在参加活动之前仍然会进行自我检测。“我不知道我旁边的人是不是免疫功能低下，我不想把新冠传给他们。” |
| Things could change quickly | 事情可能很快发生变化 |
| The experts cautioned that it’s always possible for a new variant to emerge and start another wave. | 专家们提醒说，出现一个新变种并再引发一波感染潮的可能性始终存在。 |
| Dr. Kuppalli said that she was watching Omicron subvariant XBB.1.16, also known as Arcturus, which is driving a surge in India. XBB.1.16 currently accounts for about 10 percent of cases in the United States and comes with a new symptom: conjunctivitis. | 库帕利说，她正在留意奥密克戎XBB.1.16变异株，也被称为“大角星”，在印度，该毒株导致感染激增。XBB.1.16目前约占美国病例数的10%，它伴有一个新的症状：结膜炎。 |
| Dr. Rivers is paying attention to another new subvariant, XBB.1.9.1, which makes up about 8 percent of U.S. infections right now. She expects cases to start rising again as the weather warms, driven by either these variants or one like them. “We generally see a quiet spring followed by a summer resurgence that starts in the South” because people are more likely to gather indoors when it gets too hot, she said. | 里弗斯正在关注另一新亚型XBB.1.9.1。目前它占美国感染病例的8%左右。她预计，随着天气变暖，在这些变体或其他类似变体的驱动下，病例数将再次上升。“我们通常会看到一个安静的春天，然后是夏季疫情卷土从来，它始于南方”，因为当天气变得太热时，人们更有可能聚集在室内，她说。 |
| And this, experts say, is likely our new normal. “The stage where we are now is probably a version of a stage we’ll be in a year from now, maybe two years from now, maybe five years from now,” Dr. Wachter said. “It could get a little worse, in which case I think people and societies change if they’re being rational. I think it’s unlikely to get much better.” | 专家称，这很可能会成为我们的新常态。“我们现在所处的阶段很可能是一年后，也许两年后，也许五年后我们所处阶段的一个版本，”瓦赫特说。“情况可能会变得更糟，在这种情况下，我认为如果人们和社会保持理性，他们就会做出改变。我认为情况不太可能好转。” |
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