疫情高峰过后，中国人的解脱、悲痛与焦虑China’s Covid Tsunami Recedes, Bringing Relief, Grief and Anxiety储百亮, AMY CHANG CHIEN2023年2月1日 上海一处闲置的核酸检测采样亭。据中国公共卫生官员，中国的新冠病毒感染人数现在急剧下降，感染病例已在去年12月达到高峰。 ALEX PLAVEVSKI/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCKWhen China abruptly abandoned “zero Covid,” accelerating an onslaught of infections and deaths, many feared a prolonged tide rippling from cities into villages. Now, two months later, the worst seems to have passed, and the government is eager to shift attention to economic recovery. 中国突然放弃新冠“清零”政策导致感染病例和死亡人数骤增后，许多人曾担心新冠疫情暴发的海啸会从城市蔓延到农村。现在，两个月之后，最糟糕的阶段似乎已经过去，政府正急于将注意力转移到经济复苏上。 Doctors who were mobilized across China to treat a rush of Covid patients say in phone interviews that the number of patients they are now seeing has fallen. Towns and villages that had hunkered down under the surge of infections and funerals are stirring to life. Health officials have declared that Covid cases “already peaked in late December 2022.” 中国各地的医生在接受电话采访时表示，接治的患者人数已在下降——他们曾经被动员起来救治激增的新冠患者。曾被感染人数激增、忙于为逝者办葬礼压得喘不过气来的城镇和村庄现已恢复生气。中国卫生官员宣布，新冠病毒感染人数已“在2022年12月下旬达到高峰”。 “Now the pandemic is already being forgotten from people’s minds,” Gao Xiaobin, a doctor on the outskirts of a small city in Anhui Province in eastern China, said by telephone. “Nobody is wearing masks anywhere. That’s all gone.” “现在疫情……现在人的意识中，这已经把这个疫情已经忘了，”在安徽一座小城的郊区工作的医生高晓斌（音）在电话中说。“到处都没戴口罩的，都没有了。” The true toll of the outbreak is hard to delineate, with infections and deaths shrouded by censorship and poor data collection. Officially, China has reported nearly 79,000 confirmed Covid-related deaths that occurred in hospitals since Dec. 8. But researchers say that is a drastic undercount because it excludes deaths outside hospitals. 很难搞清楚这轮疫情的真实情况，审查制度和糟糕的数据收集给感染和死亡人数蒙上了神秘色彩。据中国的官方数据，去年12月8日至今年1月26日，累计有近7.9万人因新冠病毒感染相关疾病在医院死亡。但研究人员说，这个数据严重偏低，因为它不包括死在医院外的新冠患者。 The Communist Party hopes to bustle past such questions and focus on reviving China’s economy, battered by lockdowns. Restoring growth could help repair the image of its leader, Xi Jinping, bruised after three years of stringent “zero Covid” policies — which had largely contained the virus but strangled the economy — and then their abrupt, messy abandonment in December. His government’s standing will now rest heavily on whether it can create jobs, including for a large pool of unemployed youths and graduates. 中共想把这些问题一带而过，从而将注意力集中到重振受到“清零”封控打击的经济上。恢复增长可能有助于修复中国领导人习近平的形象。在严格实行了三年新冠“清零”政策后，他的形象已受到损害，虽然“清零”政策在很大程度上遏制了病毒的传播，但也扼杀了经济。后来，政府突然在去年12月手忙脚乱地放弃了“清零”。现在，中国政府的声望将在很大程度上取决于能否创造就业机会，包括为大量的失业青年和大学毕业生创造就业机会。 几乎空无一人的义乌小商品城，摄于今年1月。 QILAI SHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESMr. Xi struck a positive note even as he has acknowledged that Covid outbreaks remain worrisome. “The dawn is just ahead,” he told the country in a speech on Jan. 20, shortly before the Lunar New Year holiday. 今年1月20日，习近平在春节到来前发表讲话时表达了乐观情绪，他告诉全国人民“曙光就在前头”，但也承认新冠疫情仍令人担心。 Provincial and city leaders have declared, one after another, that infections have peaked in their areas. Some of China’s economic powerhouse regions have issued plans for restoring business confidence. Speaking about economic revitalization last week to hundreds of officials, Huang Kunming, the Communist Party leader of Guangdong Province in southern China, did not mention the pandemic at all. 各省市领导人纷纷宣布，感染高峰已过。对中国经济增长贡献最大的一些地区已经出台了恢复商业信心的计划。上周，广东省委书记黄坤明在向全省数百名官员发表讲话时只提了经济振兴，根本没提新冠疫情。 The government has sought to shape the public narrative about the outbreak by limiting information and censoring criticism of its response. Still, anger mounted over shortages of basic medicines and the government’s obfuscation of the death count from Covid while lines at funeral parlors grew and city morgues overflowed with bodies. 政府试图通过控制信息和审查批评政府应对疫情措施的意见，来塑造公众的疫情叙事。尽管如此，仍有难以压抑的愤怒。人们对这轮疫情暴发期间基本药物短缺，殡仪馆外的队伍越排越长，城市里的太平间堆满尸体，但政府却在新冠感染有关的死亡人数上含糊不清感到非常不满。 But for many Chinese people, the imperative to move past the pandemic and make a living in a hardscrabble society may, in the end, overshadow their grievances. 但对许多中国人来说，让疫情成为过去、让他们能在一个艰难的社会谋生的紧迫感，也许最终会把这种不满压下去。 中国放弃新冠“清零”政策后，许多地方的感冒药和退烧药很快售罄，包括上海这家药店，摄于去年12月。QILAI SHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESIn phone calls to dozens of residents across China, many said they were more worried about finding work, rebuilding businesses and securing a future for their children. 在打给中国各地数十名民众的电话中，许多人表示，他们更担心的是找工作、恢复生意，以及确保子女有更好的未来。 “People don’t even talk about Covid anymore,” said Zhao Xuqian, 30, who said he lost his last job at a flour factory in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou and returned to his home village in Anhui Province. He was thinking about finding a new job in the coming weeks. “人们甚至不谈论新冠了，”现年30岁的赵旭谦（音）说，他已多次失业，最近失去了在郑州一家面粉厂的工作后，回到了安徽老家。他正在考虑未来几周找一份新工作。 “The new year has started,” he said. “We should forget the past and face forward.” “新年开始了，”他说。“我们应该忘掉过去，向前看。” Even as Chinese medical officials signaled that infections have been falling, they have also warned that the country remains vulnerable to fresh outbreaks, especially in rural areas where medical services are much scarcer than in cities. 尽管中国卫生官员表示感染人数一直在下降，但他们也警告，国内仍存在暴发新一轮疫情的风险，尤其是在医疗服务比城市少得多的农村地区。 “A new peak in infections could emerge in the areas that lack doctors and medicine, those — less than 10 percent nationwide — that have not completed the full vaccination round,” Gao Fu, a former director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told China Newsweek magazine earlier this month. “I still want to urge everyone to set aside the most important medical resources for the high-risk groups that are aged or have underlying illnesses.” “新的感染高峰很可能出现在缺医少药，国内剩余不到10%没完成全程疫苗接种的地方，”曾任中国疾病预防控制中心主任的高福本月早些时候接受《中国新闻周刊》采访时说。“因此，还是呼吁大家，将最重要的医疗资源留给有基础疾病的、老年高危人群。” To limit the toll of any new outbreaks this year, China will also have to administer more vaccination jabs and booster shots, especially among the country’s older adults, and better equip hospitals to cope with patients who have not yet had Covid, several doctors and epidemiologists said. 有医生和流行病学家表示，为了减少今年新疫情暴发导致的死亡人数，中国必须给更多的人，尤其是中国的老年人接种疫苗、打疫苗加强剂，并让医院有更好的准备，以应对尚未感染新冠人群中的疫情暴发。 贵州的医务工作者给居民量血压。 AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESThe next wave may not be as massive, but it could concentrate its wrath on the vulnerable places and people that managed to avoid infection in the recent surge. 下一轮疫情的范围可能不会这么大，但它可能集中在那些勉强躲过了这轮疫情的脆弱地区和人群身上。 Some Chinese health officials estimate that as much as 80 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people were infected in late 2022. (Other experts are skeptical of that estimate, saying that even with the swift transmissibility of the Omicron variant, it is unlikely that it could have infected so many people in such short order.) 一些中国卫生官员估计，截止2022年底，中国的14亿人中已有高达80%的人感染过新冠病毒。（其他专家对这个估计持怀疑态度，他们说，即使是传播速度非常快的奥密克戎变异株，也不太可能在如此短的时间里感染这么多人。） “Future death projections will be partially determined by how well China could protect those who are of higher risks but are still hunkering down,” Xi Chen, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health who has monitored China’s Covid pandemic, wrote in emailed answers to questions. “对未来疫情死亡率的预测将部分取决于中国如何保护那些仍有较高风险，但躲过了这轮疫情的人，”耶鲁大学公共卫生学院副教授陈曦在回答记者问题的电子邮件中写道。 Covid outbreaks in China multiplied late last year as the fast-spreading Omicron variant wore down armies of local officials enforcing lockdowns and travel restrictions. The surge grew into a tsunami after Mr. Xi lifted the pandemic restrictions, apparently shaken by protests across the country and the deepening economic slump. 去年年底，快速传播的奥密克戎变异株突破了执行严格封控和旅行限制措施的地方官员大军的防线后，感染病例在中国各地激增。显然是受到了全国各地的抗议活动和经济衰退加剧的震动，习近平放弃了“清零”政策，之后，感染激增演变成了疫情海啸。 中国领导人习近平去年12月取消了限制措施后，新冠病毒感染激增。 QILAI SHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESWhat surprised some was how quickly Covid jumped to China’s countryside. Like many doctors, Wang Guocai expected his village in southern China to be hit with infections some weeks after the Omicron subvariant swept big cities. Instead, the outbreak seemed to arrive in full force mere days after it inundated Guangzhou, the provincial capital nearly 200 miles away, he said. 让一些人感到惊讶的是，新冠病毒蔓延到中国农村的速度如此之快。奥密克戎变异株亚型席卷了大城市后，王国才（音）和许多医生一样，曾预计这轮感染传播到他所在的南方乡下需要几周时间。但他说，300多公里外的省会城市广州被疫情淹没后没过几天，新冠就在村子里全面暴发了。 At first it was mostly young people who lined up at his rural clinic. Many were migrant workers and businesspeople who had recently returned. Then growing numbers of villagers in their 60s, 70s and 80s crowded the clinic every day, Dr. Wang said in a telephone interview. 最早来他的乡村诊所排队的主要是年轻人。许多是最近从城里回来的农民工和做生意的人。王大夫在接受电话采访时说，后来每天涌入诊所的是越来越多的60多岁、70多岁和80多岁的村民。 In December, he was seeing dozens of patients each day and handing out tablets for fevers and coughs, he said, but now he is seeing only several a day. He said he was relieved that his village appeared to have avoided deaths. 他说，去年12月，他平均每天要看几十名病人，给他们开退烧药和止咳药，但现在他每天只看几名病人。他说让他感到欣慰的是，他所在的村子似乎无人死亡。 “Our village was lucky in that, to date, it hasn’t had any fatal cases,” Dr. Wang said. Other villages nearby were less fortunate, he said, though he said he was unclear about the precise number of deaths. “They were all patients who had quite serious existing conditions.” “我们村还幸运，暂时的话还没发生致命病例，”王大夫说。他说，附近的其他村子就没有这么幸运了，但他说，他不清楚那些村子的确切死亡人数。“（死者）都是基础病已经比较重那种病人。” 河南一个村子附近的一座新坟，摄于今年1月。 QILAI SHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESChina’s official death toll falls far short of initial projections by experts such as Bill Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He had earlier estimated that China’s Covid eruption could cause 2 millions deaths. 中国官方的死亡人数远远低于专家们最初的预测，比如哈佛大学陈曾熙公共卫生学院的流行病学副教授比尔·哈内奇曾预测，中国的这轮新冠疫情暴发可能会导致200万人死亡。 “I don’t think we have any insight into what has actually happened, beyond the reasonable assumption that the true numbers are far larger than the official ones,” Professor Hanage said. “我认为我们对中国实际发生的情况没有任何了解，除了真实数字远高于官方数字这个合理假设之外，”哈内奇说。 Instead, Chinese people have built up a mosaic of impressions and stories about how their hometowns have fared. 不过，中国人对自己家乡发生了什么已形成了各种各样的印象和说法。 Lu Xiaozhou, a writer from Hubei Province in central China, wrote online that 10 to 20 older residents had died in his home village of several thousand people during the recent Covid wave, and that “counts as very lucky.” Li Jing, a farmer and former migrant worker from Yulin, a rural area of northwest China, said that even though his own family’s older relatives survived the outbreak, other families were not as fortunate. 来自湖北的作家卢晓周在网上写道，在最近这轮新冠疫情中，他老家村子里的几千人中有10到20名老人死亡，“这已经非常幸运了”。老家在中国西北部农村地区榆林的农民李静（音）当过农民工，他说，虽然他家的老年亲戚感染新冠病毒后幸存了下来，但其他家庭却不这么幸运。 “There have been a lot of funerals in the county lately, I’ve seen them,” he said by telephone. Asked about the future, he said: “Now I don’t feel anything. I just want everything to go back to normal, that’s all.” “最近县里面，过白事的人挺多，”他在电话中说。当被问及未来有什么打算时，他说：“我现在没什么感觉，就想一切恢复正常就行了，没别的。” The resumption of normal life poses the risk of another surge of infections, especially after the one- or two-week-long Lunar New Year break, when many rural migrants who had traveled to their hometowns for family reunions start to return to cities. As people start moving again, so could the virus, and those who have avoided infection up to now may be exposed. 恢复正常生活带来感染病例再次激增的风险，尤其是春节过后，许多返乡与家人团聚的农民工在度过了一周或两周的假期后，已开始返回城市。随着人们再次开始流动，病毒也将开始传播，那些到目前为止尚未感染新冠病毒的人存在感染的可能性。 大批农民工在春节前离开了北京。 GILLES SABRIE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESIn the following months, the protection offered by recent vaccinations or immunity developed from infections will wear off, exposing people to renewed risks from Covid unless they receive more shots. There is also the potential danger of new subvariants, possibly less virulent but more transmissible. 通过最近接种疫苗或感染病毒获得的免疫保护将在接下来的几个月里逐渐消失，让人们再次面临感染风险，除非他们再打疫苗。还有出现新变异亚株的潜在危险，尽管新株的毒性可能更小，但传播可能会更快。 “My other family members were all infected, but not me,” Wang Xiaoyan, a resident of Ankang, a city in northwest China, said by telephone. “我们家其他人都阳过，就是我没阳，”中国西北部城市安康的居民王晓燕（音）在电话中说。 She said she had stayed in her own house and kept a distance from relatives returning to their home village in December. She only joined her extended family for Lunar New Year feasts of dumplings, stews and fish after the relatives among them who had Covid had recovered. Now she fretted about what might come next. 她说她一直呆在自己家里，与去年12月返乡的亲戚们保持着距离。直到感染了新冠病毒的亲戚们康复后，她才和亲戚们一起吃了有饺子、炖肉和鱼的年夜饭。现在她担心今后会发生什么。 “I’m worried — worried about getting infected,” she said. “I still wear a mask now, though basically nobody else does.” “我担心，担心阳，”她说。“我现在还带着口罩，别人基本上不带，我还带。” 储百亮(Chris Buckley)是《纽约时报》首席中国记者。他成长于澳大利亚悉尼，在过去30年中的大部分时间内居住在中国。在2012年加入《纽约时报》之前，他是路透社的一名记者。欢迎在Twitter上关注他：@ChuBailiang。 Amy Chang Chien在台湾为《纽约时报》报道中国大陆和台湾新闻。欢迎在Twitter上关注她： @amy_changchien。 翻译：纽约时报中文网 点击查看本文英文版。 相关报道中国取消“清零”后近6万人死于新冠2023年1月16日 正在中国上演的新冠悲剧2023年1月5日 中国新冠危机最前线：医院极限承压2022年12月28日 最受欢迎《流浪地球2》：流浪到另一个极端 人口下降不是问题，多生孩子也并非解决之道 无法完工的家：他们掏空积蓄买房，却等来烂尾噩梦 要让中国避免新冠灾难，美国可以提供这些帮助 中国秘密清算白纸运动，多名抗议者被拘捕或失联 高尔夫球场改建公屋之争背后，一个割裂的香港 IMF上调全球经济增长预期，中国重新开放为因素之一 世界翘首以盼，中国游客何时全面回归？ 中国“撒钱”外交在所罗门群岛遇挫 中国需要人们生育，试管婴儿能解决人口问题吗？ 国际 中国 商业与经济 镜头 科技 科学 健康 教育 文化 风尚 旅游 房地产 观点与评论 免费下载 纽约时报中文网 iOS 和 Android App 点击下载iOS App点击下载Android App点击下载Android APK © 2023 The New York Times Company.