VOA常速英语:Sewage?May?Be?Essential?to?Spotting?Next?COVID-19?Outbreak

When the Grand Princess cruise ship docked in Oakland California in early March,
3月初，当大公主号游轮在加州奥克兰停靠时，
carrying passengers and crew infected with coronavirus,
载着感染冠状病毒的乘客和机组人员，
Eileen white faced a daunting task.
艾琳·怀特面临着一项艰巨的任务。
What is the director of wastewater for the utility,
公用废水主管在哪里，
that serves six hundred and eighty five thousand households in San Franciscos East Bay area.
这为旧金山东湾地区的68.5万户家庭提供了服务。
They came into the Port of Oakland with a cruise ship full of waste,
他们带着一艘满载垃圾的游轮来到奥克兰港，
and they needed to get rid of it,
他们需要处理它，
and so we effectively treated you know some of the first coronavirus sewage,
所以我们对第一批冠状病毒污水进行了有效的处理，
detecting the virus and sewage is a necessary step toward effectively destroying it.
检测病毒和污水是有效销毁病毒和污水的必要步骤。
Soon it became clear that detection might be useful in other ways too.
不久，人们就清楚地发现，检测在其他方面也可能有用。
Early on we were approached by a number of universities would,
早些时候，有很多大学来找我们，
we want to help, be part of the process,
我们想要提供帮助，参与整个过程，
and trying to figure out how sewage could be a useful tool,
试图找出污水如何成为有用的工具，
as an early indicator the presence of corona virus in the community,
作为检测社区是否存在冠状病毒的早期指标，
versus waiting for people to show up in the hospital,
而不是在医院等人出现，
patient testing on a scale necessary to control the virus,
在控制病毒所必需的范围内进行病人测试，
has been hampered for many reasons,
因为很多原因而受到阻碍，
not everyone is getting tested,
不是每个人都要接受测试，
but everyone uses the bathroom.
但每个人都用洗手间。
Youre seeing in sewage before people are really showing the symptoms days and weeks before.
几天几周前,在人们真正表现出症状之前，你会在污水中看到，
Whites team is collecting samples each week and sending them to multiple labs,
怀特的团队每周都在采集样本并送到多个实验室，
including the Nelson lab at the University of California Berkeley.
包括加州大学伯克利分校的纳尔逊实验室。
Were really interested in trends of increasing or decreasing infections,
我们对感染增加或减少的趋势很感兴趣，
and that would help guide decision making.
这将有助于指导决策。
But getting useful data from raw sewage also has many challenges,
但是从污水中获取有用的数据也有很多挑战，
theres a lot of things that make wastewater complicated right so,
有很多事情会让废水变得复杂，
its not just poop and pee and wastewater,
不仅仅是大便小便和废水，
its also rain water and laundry water and things that vary with time,
它也是雨水和洗衣水以及随时间变化的东西，
and so that will affect how dilute the virus is in the sample like how much we can detect.
因此，这将影响病毒在样本中的稀释程度，比如我们能检测到多少。
Wastewater epidemiologists have successfully tracked polio and Ebola,
废水流行病学家成功地追踪了小儿麻痹症和埃博拉病毒，
but the scale of the covid 19 crisis is spurring an uNPRecedented rapid response.
但令人垂涎的19次危机的规模正促使人们做出前所未有的快速反应。
An international alliance of over 400 researchers is collaborating weekly on methods standards,
一个由400多名研究人员组成的国际联盟正在每周就方法标准进行合作，
massachusetts based biobot analytics currently analyzes wastewater samples,
马萨诸塞州的生物机器人分析公司目前分析废水样本，
from 41 states in the u.s. using machine learning.
使用机器学习。来自美国41个州。
Wastewater data that you measured today,
你今天测量的废水数据，
is giving you an early warning indication of how many new covid 19 cases,
给你一个预警信号告诉你有多少新病例，
you will see in that community about seven days out.
你会在那个社区里看到大约七天的路程。
This is because in the first few days of infection.
这是因为在感染的最初几天。
People often have no symptoms and are not getting tested,
人们通常没有症状也没有检测，
but are still shedding the virus when they use the bathroom,
但当他们上厕所的时候还在传播病毒，
Wastewater gives you that window of opportunity.
废水给了你机会之窗。
Detecting outbreaks earlier can help health officials distribute resources and save lives.
及早发现疫情可以帮助卫生官员分配资源和拯救生命。
The amount of value that people suddenly seeing wastewater,
人们突然看到废水的价值，
I think it is refreshing to realize that it is this catchment of all of society,
我认为，意识到这是整个社会的集水区，这是令人耳目一新的，
and that we have a way of tracking important diseases.
我们有一种追踪重要疾病的方法。
Anything it will probably be used going well into the future as well,
它很可能也会被用于未来，
The Nelson lab at Berkeley plans to monitor sewage on their own campus this fall,
伯克利的纳尔逊实验室计划今年秋天在他们自己的校园里监测污水，
to support the universitys safe reopening.
以支持大学的安全重开。
For VOA news Matt Dibble Berkeley California
美国之音新闻，马特·迪布尔伯克利，加利福尼亚州