- Health officials have been reporting lately that the average daily number of new COVID-19 cases is rising in the United States.
- 然而，一些专家表示，重点应该转向Covid-19住院和死亡，作为大流行地位的主要指标。
- 他们说这是因为接种疫苗的人之间几乎所有新案例都不会发展成严重疾病，因此计数案件变得不那么重要。
As the world gets closer to its third year with the COVID-19 pandemic and the more than500万人死亡它造成的是，越来越多的专家说，这种疾病在这里留下来，是时候开始在新的光线中看着小型冠状病毒。
Specifically, they say it’s time to measure the pandemic’s impact by shifting how we look at the statistics.
专家说接种疫苗的人仍然可以获得Covid-19，但是他们的风险住院或死亡的人远低于未接种的涂抹的人。
因此，而不是看案例数字，专家表示，通过住院和死亡人数来专注于大流行的严重程度。
“It’s always been the way we should have been looking at it,”Dr. William Schaffner田纳西州Vanderbilt University的传染病教授告诉健康线。雷竞技app官网“住院和死亡者比新案件更好。”
Schaffner补充说，在整个大流行中，测试能力受到限制，这可能导致Covid-19案件的损失。所以假阴性，特别是在家里的快速测试。
Dr. Monica Gandhi是旧金山加州大学的传染病专家和医学教授。
她写了一个op-ed.本月在《旧金山纪事报》说,among other things, that herd immunity is no longer achievable, and we need to rethink the notion of tracking COVID-19 by new cases.
“这样做是有道理的，”甘地告诉健康线。雷竞技app官网“我们以为以某种方式讨论了传播链。但它是如此可推动，你不能打破那个链条。“
But with more vaccines becoming available as well as new antiviral drugs effective at limiting COVID-19’s severity, Gandhi said case rates are no longer an effective barometer in measuring our pandemic response.
The pandemic is widespread enough that most people will be exposed to the coronavirus at some point, so the sooner we get used to the idea, the sooner we get back to normal, she said.
“The idea was, in general, if cases went up, numbers of people in the hospital went up,” Gandhi said. “Now, it’s not only de-linked, but it’s completely muddled. Cases and hospitalizations are no longer linked.”
Although COVID-19 remains a bigger threat than influenza, both are respiratory infections, Gandhi pointed out.
“We need to get everyone on board,” she said. “We’re never stomping out the flu or any other respiratory virus. We only did that with smallpox, and we wore that on our skin (meaning it was easier to diagnose visually).”
甘地说，我们可以完全根除Covid-19的概念是一个政治理念而不是实际的理念。
“这都是政治性的，”她说。“它比流感更严重。但是一旦你接种疫苗，就没有。没有人知道特定城市的流感病例有多少。我的意思是，我这样做，但我是医生。但我们不遵循这一点。人们减少了公共卫生官员的信任。“
The way to regain some of that trust is realistically dealing with the novel coronavirus by opening things up and continuing to push vaccinations, especially as we see a typical uptick in cases coming this winter, Gandhi said.
“美国人都将被暴露（在某些时候），我很抱歉说，”甘地告诉健康线条。雷竞技app官网“这就是呼吸系统疾病如何运作以及他们总是工作的方式。”
Schaffner同意我们需要学会与Covid-19一起生活。
“在我们的余生中，我们可能需要常规助推器，”他说。“现在有研究Covid-19和流感疫苗（进入一击）的疫苗研究人员。”