网课、家长群、社区工作……《纽约客》何伟笔下的中国抗疫故事
我试图网上直播上课,但由于系统故障直播多次崩溃,只能作罢。之后,我就放弃了通过视频直播上课的方式。每周,我会准备图片、地图和文档在屏幕上共享,和学生通过音频和文本进行交流。
I tried to live-stream a lecture, but the system froze and crashed so many times that I gave up. After that, I avoided video. Every week, I prepared low-resolution photographs, maps, and documents to share onscreen, and my students and I communicated through audio and text.
进入大学的每个大门都配备了面部识别扫描仪,这些仪器在佩戴口罩的情况下也能识别。
Every gate to the university had been equipped with facial-recognition scanners, which were calibrated for face coverings.
我的办公桌上放着学校为教师返校提供的一些个人防护用具,包括五个口罩,一副橡胶手套,一盒酒精棉片。
It contained some tools that the university had provided for my return to the classroom: five surgical masks, a pair of rubber gloves, a box of Opula alcohol prep pads.
每天,我的女儿们至少要进行五次体温测量。早上六点半,班级的学生家长群开始体温测量“接龙”。每个家长以#接龙的标签开头,列出孩子的名字、学号、体温以及“身体健康”的字样。
Each day, my daughters had their temperature taken at least five times. This routine began at 6:30 a.m., when the class's WeChat parent group engaged in something called Jielong, or "Connect the Dragon.” One parent would start the hashtag #Jielong, and list her child’s name, student number, temperature in Celsius, and the words "Body is healthy."
社区工作人员挨家挨户上门,提供疫情防控信息,询问居民是否去过高风险地区,并帮助追踪病例密切接触者。
Neighborhood crews went door to door, giving out information, questioning residents to see if they had been to high-risk areas, and helping with contact tracing.
一位上海的流行病学专家曾在美国工作多年。当我问他美国人是否可以从中国学到一些实际经验时,他认为是社区参与。“在美国没有居委会这样的机构,但是设立类似的机构其实很重要。” 这位专家还指出,如果美国在这一方面给予资金支持,那么就可以在疫情中提供相应的公共卫生服务。
The Chinese epidemiologist in Shanghai had also worked for many years in the U.S., and I asked if there was anything that Americans could realistically learn from China. “Community engagement,” he said immediately. “We don’t have the neighborhood-committee structure in the U.S., but it’s important to find some alternative.” He noted that public-health services might have served this purpose if the American system had been properly funded.
美国约翰斯·霍普金斯大学健康安全中心的流行病学家詹妮弗·纳佐(Jennifer Nuzzo)指出,美国没能做好病例密切接触者的追踪。“我们研究了2019年美国麻疹的暴发,发现相关机构很少追踪病例密切接触者”,她说道。
Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me that contact tracing is something of a lost art in the U.S. “We did a study of the measles outbreak in 2019, and they were doing minimal contact tracing,” she said.
美国人的反应常常显得非常被动。即使那些开明的公民似乎也认为,对抗疫情遵守“封锁令”并在公共场合戴口罩就足够了。但是有效遏制病毒传播需要积极的、有组织的努力以及强有力的制度指导。
The American response often appears passive—even enlightened citizens seem to believe that obeying lockdown orders and wearing masks in public is enough. But any attempt to control the virus requires active, organized effort, and there needs to be strong institutional direction.
我想传达这样一种观点:当前美国的失败并不仅仅反映了国民性或价值观,更反映了体制的崩溃——美国领导层面和体制结构的危机。
I tried to convey the idea that the current American failure doesn’t narrowly reflect national character or values but, rather, a collapse of system: a crisis of leadership and institutional structures.
如今已“风雨飘摇,自顾不暇”的美国领导层似乎更希望能找到“替罪羊”,有时候他们试图通过种族因素来转嫁矛盾,比如把新冠病毒称作“功夫流感”或“中国病毒”。
The flailing American leadership seems more interested in finding scapegoats, sometimes with a racial tinge—the Kung Flu and the China Virus.