《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第38期:普通感冒(1)
COMMON COLD
Q. If everyone on the planet stayed away from each other for a couple of weeks, wouldn't the common cold be wiped out?
Q．如果把地球上所有人都各自隔離開來並維持幾個星期，這樣能徹底消滅感冒嗎？A. WOULD IT BE WORTH IT?
A．這麼做值嗎？
The common cold is caused by a variety of viruses, but rhinoviruses are the most common culprit. These viruses take over the cells in your nose and throat and use them to produce more viruses. After a few days, your immune system notices and destroys it,but not before you infect, on average, one other person. After you fight off the infection, you are immune to that particular rhinovirus strain-an immunity that lasts for years.
感冒可以由多種感冒病毒引起，鼻病毒是最常見的致病元兇。這些病毒會攻擊鼻子和喉嚨中的細胞，並利用這些細胞生產更多的病原體。幾天後你的免疫系統會注意到有不速之客入侵併把它們都清除掉，但根據一般情況，這時你已經感染了另一個人。4在你戰勝感冒之後，你的身體會在接下來的幾年裏對這一種具體的鼻病毒菌株免疫。If Sarah put us all in quarantine, the cold viruses we carry would have no fresh hosts to run to. Could our immune systems then wipe out every copy of the virus?
如果像薩拉說的那樣，每個人都被隔離開來，那麼我們攜帶的感冒病毒將無法感染新的宿主。那麼我們的免疫系統有能力清除所有的病毒嗎？Before we answer that question, let's consider the practical consequences of this kind of quarantine. The world's total annual economic output is in the neighborhood of $80 trillion, which suggests that interrupting all economic activity for a few weeks would cost many trillions of dollars. The shock to the system from the worldwide “pause” could easily cause a global economic collapse.
在回答這個問題之前，我們不妨先考慮一下這種形式隔離的後果。全世界每年總體經濟產出在80萬億美元左右，這意味着全世界經濟停擺幾個星期會造成數萬億美元的損失，由此產生的衝擊很容易就讓全球經濟崩潰。The world's total food reserves are probably large enough to cover us for four or five weeks of quarantine, but the food would have to be evenly parceled out beforehand. Frankly, I'm not sure what I'd do with a 20-day grain reserve while standing alone in a field somewhere.
全世界的糧食儲備足夠支撐4～5個星期的隔離，但前提是在此之前糧食要能平均分配。坦白來說，我甚至都不確定一個人孤零零地站在某個地方守着足夠吃20天的糧食該幹什麼。A global quarantine brings us to another question: How far apart can we actually get from one another? The world is big,[citation needed ] but there are a lot of people.[citation needed ]
全球大隔離還會產生另一個問題：人與人之間的距離是多少？世界很大，但人也很多。If we divide up the world's land area evenly, there's enough room for each of us to have a little over 2 hectares each, with the nearest person 77 meters away.
如果我們把全世界所有的陸地面積平均分配，那麼平均每個人能夠分到2公頃多一點的土地面積，最近的人在77米外。While 77 meters is probably enough separation to block the transmission of rhinoviruses, that separation would come at a cost. Much of the world's land is not pleasant to stand around on for five weeks. A lot of us would be stuck standing in the Sahara Desert,5 or central Antarctica.
雖然77米的間隔距離很有可能足以阻斷鼻病毒的傳播，但這是有代價的。全球大部分陸地並不適宜人類在那裏站上5個星期。許多人將會站在撒哈拉沙漠5裏或者南極洲中部。
