专家：美国将在秋冬季遭遇流感和新冠“双重”暴发_BEC初级作文

专家：美国将在秋冬季遭遇流感和新冠“双重”暴发

虽然人们尚不清楚流感的季节性成因，但其传播方式却有据可查。流感与新冠肺炎的传播方式基本相同：病毒通过在封闭空间和人群中近距离咳嗽、飞沫溅射和打喷嚏传播。由于上述原因，保持社交距离的措施对防控流感和新冠肺炎都是有效的。

When community spread of Covid-19 began in the United States in March, widespread shutdowns shaved “four to six weeks” off the flu season in 2020, said Dr Richard Kennedy, co-director of the Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research lab.

美国梅奥诊所疫苗研究实验室的联合负责人理查德·肯尼迪博士说，新冠病毒今年3月开始在美国社区传播时，大范围的封锁措施令2020年的流感季缩短了“4到6周”。

That was “probably as a direct result of the social distancing and the mask-wearing and the shutdown,” said Kennedy. A similar phenomenon is taking place in the southern hemisphere, where winter flu season is now tapering off. Countries such as Chile have seen historically low influenza transmission.

肯尼迪说，这“可能是保持社交距离、佩戴口罩和封锁的直接结果”。南半球也出现了类似现象，目前那里的冬季流感季正接近尾声。智利等国的流感传播率创历史最低水平。

taper off：逐渐停止；逐渐减少

“Will we see that same thing up here? The answer is, if we wear our masks and social distancing, yes. If we remain shut down, yes,” said Kennedy. “But I don’t know if Americans are going to do any or all of the above.”