Why The Death Rate From Coronavirus Is Plunging In China为什么中国的冠状病毒死亡率在下降When it comes to the spiraling global coronavirus outbreak, scientists are still trying to pin down the answer to a basic question: How deadly is this virus?

当全球冠状病毒爆发时，科学家们仍在试图找到一个基本问题的答案:这种病毒有多致命?

Estimates have varied widely.

For instance, at a Feb.

24 news conference in Beijing, a top Chinese health official, Liang Wannian, said the fatality rate for COVID-19 was quite high:估计差异很大。

例如，在2月24日于北京举行的一次新闻发布会上，中国卫生部高级官员梁万年说，19号致命病例的致死率相当高:"Between 3 to 4% of patients have died," said Liang.

3%到4%的病人已经死亡，”梁说。

Then he added: Outside of Wuhan — the city at the epicenter of the outbreak, the death rate in China has been much lower: about 0.

7 percent.

That's fewer than 1 fatality per 100 cases.

然后他又补充说:在疫情中心城市武汉之外，中国的死亡率要低得多，大约是0.

7%。

每100个病例中只有不到1人死亡。

Death Rate For COVID-19 Cases InChina中国COVID-19例的死亡率Similarly, a study released by China's Center for Disease Control last month, found that if you factor out all the data from Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, the fatality rate in the rest of China drops to 0.

4 percent.

同样，中国疾病预防控制中心上个月发布的一项研究发现，如果把武汉所在的湖北省的所有数据都提取出来，中国其他地区的死亡率下降到到0.

4%。

Why such a big difference between Hubei and the rest of China?

为什么湖北和中国其他地方有这么大的不同呢?

At a news conference the next day,Dr.

Bruce Aylward— who'd just concluded a fact-finding mission to China for the World Health Organization — pointed to three likely factors.

在第二天的新闻发布会上，布鲁斯·艾尔沃德博士，他刚刚结束了世界卫生组织在中国的调查任务，指出了三个可能的因素。

First, said Aylward, is that Wuhan suffered from being the first place where the new coronavirus surfaced.

"Wuhan started fast and, and early.

People didn't know what we were dealing with.

We were learning how to treat this.

"首先，艾尔沃德说，武汉是第一个新冠状病毒出现的地方。

武汉开始得又快又早。

人们不知道我们在处理什么。

我们正在学习如何应对这种情况。

”The more patients medical staff saw, the more they could start identifying what kind of supportive care made a difference.

So by the time patients started showing up in hospitals in other provinces, doctors and nurses there had a lot more information about what it takes to keep patients alive.

医护人员看到的病人越多，他们就越能认识到什么样的维持疗法能起到作用。

因此，当病人开始出现在其他省份的医院时，那里的医生和护士掌握了更多关于如何让病人活下去的信息。

Hospitals in the rest of world will likely also benefit from that knowledge.

世界其他地方的医院可能也会从这些知识中受益。

Hospitals in Wuhan were flooded with thousands of sick people.

That stressed their capacity to provide the kind of round-the-clock intensive care needed for a patient with a critical case of COVID-19.

武汉的医院里挤满了成千上万的病人。

这就强调了他们提供24小时重症监护的能力，而这种监护正是患COVID-19病症所需要的。

Elsewhere in China the caseload was much lower.

在中国其他地方，病例数量要低得多。

The implication for other countries: It's worth trying to at least slow the pace of an outbreak with measures to keep the number of patients from overwhelming local hospitals.

这对其他国家的启示是:至少有必要尝试减缓疫情爆发的速度，采取措施防止患者数量超过当地医院负荷。

The final factor, says Aylward, "At the beginning of this outbreak remember, people were finding severe disease.

And that's why the alarm bells went off.

"艾尔沃德说，最后一个因素是:记住，在疫情爆发之初，人们发现了严重的疾病。

这就是为什么警钟响了。

”Those early severe cases made COVID-19 look like a much bigger killer.

It was only after officials in China stepped up surveillance that they started uncovering many more mild cases (people with symptoms such as fever and dry cough).

这些早期的严重病例使COVID-19看起来像是一个更大的杀手。

只是在中国官员加强监测之后，他们才开始发现更多轻微的病例(有发烧和干咳等症状的人)。

All of this may also help explain why over time the death rate for COVID-19 has steadily dropped.

所有这些也有助于解释为什么随着时间的推移，COVID-19的死亡率稳步下降。

According to the China CDC study, among patients whose symptoms started between Jan.

1 and Jan.

10 the death rate was 15.

6 percent.

But it was just 0.

8 percent among those who didn't get sick until Feb.

1 to Feb.

11.

根据中国疾病预防控制中心的研究，在1月1日至1月10日出现症状的患者中，死亡率为15.

6%。

但在2月1日至2月11日才发病的人群中，这一比例仅为0.

8%。

That pattern of progressively dropping death rates is one we're likely to see in other countries.

我们很可能在其他国家看到这种死亡率逐步下降的模式。

In other words, there's a good chance the fatality rate in nations with good health systems will end up being a lot lower than what was first seen in China.

换句话说，在拥有良好卫生系统的国家，死亡率很可能会比中国首次出现的情况低很多。

【为什么中国的冠状病毒死亡率在下降查看网站：[db:时间]】