新冠肺炎疫情已為生活帶來許多不便，
大家活在染病的恐慌之下，擔心自己可能會成為無症狀感染者，
此外，近日的新發現也指出有近 40 %的人是無症狀感染者，
到底是哪些因素造成這種現象呢？
還有，這將對接下來疫情帶來什麼重大的影響呢？
別著急，這次小 V 精挑細選了一篇英文報導，讓你邊了解邊學英文！
今天小 V 帶大家讀的文章是 The Washington Post 所發佈的這篇英文報導：
Forty percent of people with coronavirus infections have no symptoms. Might they be the key to ending the pandemic?
首段文章提到有許多人感染新冠肺炎卻毫無症狀，讓研究人員開始深思其背後的原因：
When researcher Monica Gandhi began digging deeper into outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, she was struck by the extraordinarily high number of infected people who had no symptoms. During its seven-month global rampage, the coronavirus has claimed more than 700,000 lives. But Gandhi began to think the bigger mystery might be why it has left so many more practically unscathed.
(當研究員 Monica Gandhi 開始深入調查新型冠狀病毒的爆發時，她被無症狀感染者的極高數量所震驚。在病毒全球肆虐的這七個月，它已奪走超過 70 萬條人命，但 Gandhi 同時也在思考為什麼會有這麼多人卻安然無恙。 )
rampage
rampage 為名詞，意思是「撒野；狂暴行爲」。此單字動名詞同形，當作動詞使用時，意思同名詞。
The armed rioters went on a rampage through the city to express their rage toward the government.
為了表達他們對政府的憤怒，那些武裝暴民在城市中胡作非為。
unscathed
unscathed /ˌʌnˈskeðd/ 為形容詞，意思是「無恙的」，不能置於名詞前作前位修飾 。
The woman escaped unscathed from the car accident.
那位女士平安逃過那場嚴重的車禍。
【戶外教育】食肉一族是你？看不會動的植物如何大口吃肉！ (The wild world of flesh-eating plants – Kenny Coogan)
經過一番努力，研究人員終於開始找出造成這種現象的可能原因。
Efforts to understand the diversity in the illness are finally beginning to yield results, raising hope the knowledge will help accelerate development of vaccines and therapies — or possibly even create new pathways toward herd immunity in which enough of the population develops a mild version of the virus that they block further spread, and the pandemic ends… “There are so many other unknown factors that maybe determine why someone gets an asymptomatic infection,” Fauci said. “It’s a very difficult problem to pinpoint one thing.”
(為了瞭解這種疾病的多樣性而投入的努力終於漸漸產生了結果，而這些結果將有助於縮短疫苗研發和治療方法研究的時間，甚至可能開創群體免疫的新途徑，從而使足夠的人口發展出一種溫和的病毒，來阻擋病毒進一步地散播，進而終結疫情。Fauci 表示：「還有很多其他未知因素可能決定為什麼某些人是無症狀感染，但是，要準確指出是哪一個因素是非常困難的。」)
herd immunity
herd immunity 為名詞，意思是「群體免疫」。herd 有「群體」的意思，而 immunity 的意思則是「免疫力，免疫性」。
The researchers are investigating herd immunity to end the pandemic.
為了停止這個流行病，研究人員正在研究群體免疫。
【TED-Ed】要等到何時疫情才會結束？ (When is a pandemic over?)
asymptomatic
asymptomatic /ˌeˌsɪmtəˈmætɪk/ 為形容詞，意思是「無症狀的」，symptom 是「症狀」的意思，而字首 a- 則有「沒有…」的意思，因此「無症狀感染」的英文為 asymptomatic infections。
Due to the long incubation period of BSE, most patients were initially asymptomatic.
由於狂牛症較長的潛伏期，許多病患初期都是無症狀的。
這段指出新冠肺炎可能不像大家所說的是「新型」病毒。
When SARS-CoV-2 was first identified on Dec. 31, 2019, public health officials deemed it a “novel” virus because it was the first time it had been seen in humans who presumably had no immunity from it whatsoever. There’s now some very early, tentative evidence suggesting that assumption might have been wrong.
(當新型冠狀病毒在 2019 年 12 月 31 日首次被發現時，公共衛生官員將它視為「新型」病毒，因為據推測首次在人體發現它時，該人對其毫無免疫力。然而現在，有些非常初步的暫時性證據顯示這項假設可能是錯誤的。)
tentative
tentative 為形容詞，意思是「暫時的，試驗性的」，通常用來形容計畫或想法。
Their tentative plan is to go on a vacation in September.
他們暫定九月要去旅遊。
接著，文章開始提到可能導致無症狀感染的因素，首先是所謂的「免疫記憶機器」，儘管不能草率下定論，但美國頂尖的感染疾病專家也同意某些個體中，是有可能存在新冠肺炎的疫體。
One mind-blowing hypothesis…is that a segment of the world’s population may have partial protection thanks to “memory” T cells, the part of our immune system trained to recognize specific invaders. This could originate from cross protection derived from standard childhood vaccinations or…it could trace back to previous encounters with other coronaviruses, such as those that cause the common cold. “This might potentially explain why some people seem to fend off the virus and may be less susceptible to becoming severely ill,” National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins remarked in a blog post this past week.
(一個令人震驚的假設表示…多虧「記憶型」T 細胞，世界上某些人可能受到部分保護。 T 細胞是我們免疫系統中專門用來辨別特定入侵者的部分。而對於新冠病毒的交叉保護可能源自標準的兒童疫苗接種，或者…可以追溯到以前因冠狀病毒感染的疾病，像是感冒。美國國家衛生院的負責人 Francis Collins 在上週一篇部落格中說道：「這可能解釋了為什麼有些人似乎可以抵禦這種病毒，不那麼容易患重病。」)
susceptible
susceptible 為形容詞，意思是「易受影響的，易受傷害的」，常見用法為：be susceptible to sth. (易受…所影響或傷害)。
These plants are susceptible to cold weather.
這些植物很容易受天冷影響。
第二種可能性則跟小時候接種的疫苗有關，儘管目前僅僅是透過觀察得出的推測，但研究員仍然相信如果事實正是如此，那麼世界的疫苗研發策略將徹底改變。
Today, a number of existing vaccines are being studied to see if any might offer cross-protection against SARS-CoV-2. The results were intriguing: Seven types of vaccines given one, two or five years in the past were associated with having a lower rate of infection with the new coronavirus. Two vaccines in particular seemed to show stronger links: People who got a pneumonia vaccine in the recent past appeared to have a 28 percent reduction in coronavirus risk. Those who got polio vaccines had a 43 percent reduction in risk.
(如今，為了瞭解是否有現有的疫苗可以提供針對新型冠狀病毒的交叉保護，許多現有疫苗正在研究當中。其結果非常有趣：在過去一兩年或五年接種的七種疫苗與新冠病毒的較低感染率有關。特別是有兩種疫苗似乎存有更強大的關聯性，其中，在近期接種肺炎疫苗的人感染新冠病毒的風險降低了 28 %。而那些接種小兒麻痺疫苗的人則降低了 43% 的風險。)
intriguing
intriguing 為形容詞，意思是「非常有趣的，引人入勝的」。
She has an intriguing personality that everyone likes very much.
她的個性非常有趣，大家都很喜歡。
第三個可能性與遺傳學和生物學有關。
At NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md., meanwhile, Alkis Togias has been laser-focused on one group of the mildly impacted: children. He wondered if it might have something to do with the receptor known as ACE2, through which the virus hitchhikes into the body…He said recent papers have produced counterintuitive findings about one subgroup of children — those with a lot of allergies and asthma. The ACE2 receptors in those children were diminished, and when they were exposed to an allergen such as cat hair, the receptors were further reduced. “We are thinking allergic reactions may protect you by down-regulating the receptor,” he said. “It’s only a theory of course.”
(此時在馬里蘭州貝賽斯達國家衛生院的 Alkis Togias 則專注於研究一組僅受到輕微影響的族群：兒童。他想知道這是否跟名為血管收縮素轉化酶 2 的受體有關，因為病毒是透過這個受體進入人體的。在近期的論文中他發表了一項不如預期的發現，而這項發現和那些有過敏或氣喘的兒童有關。在這些兒童的身體中，血管收縮素轉化酶 2 較正常人來得少，而當他們接觸到像是貓毛的過敏原時，這些受體會急遽減少。Alkis Togias 說：「雖然這僅僅是個猜側，但我們在想過敏反應可能可以透過減少這些受體來保護你。」)
hitchhike
hitchhike 為動詞，意思是「免費搭便車」，在此解釋為「進入」的意思。
We missed the bus and had to hitchhike to our destination.
我們錯過要搭的公車，因此必須搭便車到我們的目的地。
最後一個因素則是眾所皆知的口罩。
[In] scrutinizing the data on outbreaks one day, [Gandhi] noticed what might be a pattern: People were wearing masks in the settings with the highest percentage of asymptomatic cases…In an article published this month in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Gandhi noted that in some outbreaks early in the pandemic in which most people did not wear masks, 15 percent of the infected were asymptomatic. But later on, when people began wearing masks, the rate of asymptomatic people was 40 to 45 percent. She said the evidence points to masks not just protecting others…but protecting the wearer as well.
(某天在仔細查看疫情爆發的數據時，Gandhi 發現有一個特定的模式：在無症狀病例百分比最高的環境當中，民眾都有戴口罩。這個月在 General Internal Medicine 日誌中發表的一篇文章裡，Gandhi 指出在疫情大爆發之前，沒有戴口罩的無症狀感染者的比例大概是 15%，但當民眾開始戴起口罩時，比例上升至 40% 至 45%。Gandhi 表示戴口罩不僅是在保護他人，同時也是在保護配戴者自己。)
scrutinize
scrutinize 為動詞，意思是「仔細審查，細看」。
The detective is scrutinizing the evidence, trying to find some clues as to who committed the crime.
這名偵探在仔細審查證據，試圖找出線索看看到底是誰犯下這起犯罪案件。
【新冠肺炎】疫情何時才會結束？ (When Will Coronavirus Pandemic End?)
在看完這篇文章後，是不是對於無症狀感染有近一步地了解呢？但小 V 還是要在這邊提醒大家，雖然目前疫情在台灣看似是有趨緩的情勢，但讀者們不能因此而鬆懈，還是要勤洗手、戴口罩，在人多的地方也要記得戴上口罩，保護自己也保護他人！
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文/ Doris Lai
審/ Eunice Lin
圖/ shutterstock
參考資料/ The Washington Post
作者簡介/ VoiceTube 看影片學英語