福奇說 : 美國 “走出了病毒大流行階段”

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

United States is 'out of the pandemic phase,' Fauci says

NBC News

Bryan Pietsch

Wed, April 27, 2022, 2:49 AM

The United States is finally "out of the pandemic phase," the country's top infectious disease expert said, as cases and hospitalizations are notably down and mask mandates are all but extinct.

While there are still new infections spreading throughout the country - an average of 50,000 per day as of Tuesday - the country is far from the heights of the pandemic, when daily case counts surpassed 1 million. Restrictions, too, are easing as many Americans appear to be putting the pandemic behind them. Masking requirements have been lifted across most of the country, and officials stopped enforcing a federal mask mandate in transportation settings after a judge struck down the requirement.

"We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase," Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said Tuesday evening on PBS's "NewsHour."

Fauci said the United States was no longer seeing "tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now."

During the pandemic's darkest moments, many wondered when the country would officially declare itself past the nationwide disaster, which has killed nearly 1 million Americans.

Fauci's comments are likely to fuel debate about whether this is truly the moment: New cases are on the rise in the United States, and deaths are down, though they often lag spikes in cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that as of the end of February, nearly 60 percent of Americans - including three out of every four children - have been infected with the coronavirus. But officials cautioned that the data did not indicate that Americans have widespread immunity against the virus because of their prior infections.

While previous infections are believed to offer some protection against serious disease for most people, health experts say the best protection against infection and serious disease or death from the coronavirus is vaccination.

The coronavirus will not be eradicated, Fauci said, but can be handled if its level of spread is kept "very low" and people are "intermittently" vaccinated, though he said he did not know how frequently. And Fauci echoed warnings from the World Health Organization and the United Nations this month that worldwide, the pandemic is far from over as vaccinations lag, particularly in developing nations.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, is appealing a ruling by a Trump-appointed federal judge that struck down the federal mask mandate on transit, including on planes, though it is unclear whether they will be successful, and likely face an American public that could be unwilling to comply again.

And in a less-than-subtle reminder that the coronavirus is still hanging around, the White House on Tuesday announced arguably the nation's highest-profile coronavirus infection since former president Donald Trump, saying that Vice President Kamala Harris had tested positive and was asymptomatic. She was not considered in close contact to Biden, the White House said.

Translation

美國首席傳染病專家說，該國終於 “走出了病毒大流行階段” ，因為病例和住院人數明顯下降，口罩規定幾乎絕跡。

儘管仍有新的感染病例在全國蔓延 - 截至週二平均每天有 50,000 例 - 但該國已遠離病毒大流行的高峰，當時每天的病例數超過 100 萬。許多美國人似乎將疫情拋諸腦後，限制措施也在放鬆。全國大部分地區都取消了戴口罩的要求，在法官否決了強制戴口罩後，官員們停止在交通環境中強制執行聯邦戴口罩的規定。

總統拜登的首席醫療顧問福奇(Fauci)週二晚上在 PBS 的 “新聞時間”節目中說：“我們現在肯定在這個國家裡,病毒大流行階段已被擺脫。”

福奇說，美國不再看到“成千上萬的人住院和成千上萬的人死亡。我們現在處於低水平”。

在病毒大流行最黑暗的時刻，許多人想知道該國何時會正式宣布己度過了這場全國性災難，這場災難導致近 100 萬美國人喪生。

福奇的評論可能會引發是否當下真的已走出了病毒大流行階段的爭論：美國的新病例正在上升，死亡人數在下降，儘管它們往往滯後於病例高峰。美國疾病控制與預防中心週二表示，截至 2 月底，近 60% 的美國人 - 包括四分之三的兒童 - 感染了冠狀病毒。但官員們警告說，這些數據並未表明美國人因為之前的感染而對病毒具有廣泛的免疫力。

雖然以前的感染被認為可以為大多數人提供一些預防嚴重疾病的保護，但健康專家表示，預防感染和嚴重疾病或冠狀病毒死亡的最佳保護是接種疫苗。

福奇說，冠狀病毒不會被根除，但如果其傳播水平保持“非常低”,  並且人們“斷斷續續地”接種疫苗，則能够應對處理，儘管他說他不知道接種要幾頻密。福奇本月回應了世界衛生組織和聯合國的警告，即在全球範圍內，由於疫苗接種滯後，特別是在發展中國家，病毒大流行還遠未結束。

與此同時，拜登政府正在對特朗普任命的聯邦法官的一項裁決提出上訴，該裁決取消了聯邦的乘搭交通公具時, 包括飛機在內, 要佩戴口罩的命令,但目前尚不清楚否會成功，並且很可能會面對美國公眾再次不願意遵守戴口罩的命令。

又作為一個刻意指出冠狀病毒仍然存在的提醒, 白宮週二宣布了自前總統特朗普以來, 美國最引人注目的冠狀病毒感染，聲稱副總統賀錦麗的檢測結果呈陽性且無症狀。白宮表示，她不被認為與拜登有密切聯繫。

       Fauci says that the Americans are out of the pandemic phase, and that the United States is no longer seeing thousands of hospitalizations and deaths. Yet he echoes warnings from the World Health Organization this month that worldwide the pandemic is far from over as vaccinations lag, particularly in developing nations. So, it is not surprising that the next wave may come at any time.