Why the Coronavirus Is So Much Worse than Sept. 11

新冠病毒比9·11更可怕

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we were exhorted to defiance. I remember it well.

在2001年9月11日的恐怖袭击之后，我们得到的教诲是不要被吓倒。我记得很清楚。

Don’t let the terrorists win, we were told. Don’t let them steal your joys or disrupt your routines – at least not too much. Be wary, yes, and be patient with extra-long security lines where they didn’t previously exist. If you see something, say something. But otherwise, resume normal life. Venture out. Revel.

我们被告知，不能让恐怖分子得逞。不能让他们偷走你的快乐或扰乱你的日常生活——至少别被扰乱太多。要小心，这没错，还要对那些以前不存在的安检排大队保持耐心。如果你看到有什么不对，说出来。但除此之外，继续正常生活。去探险。并乐在其中。

“Get down to Disneyworld,” President George W. Bush said.

“去迪士尼世界吧。”当时的总统乔治·W·布什（George W. Bush）说。

Disneyworld is now closed.

迪士尼世界现在已经关门。

The specter of the coronavirus is utterly different from prior moments of national panic or devastation. I keep hearing comparisons to Sept. 11 in particular, and I understand why: The terror now is similar to the terror then, a wicked weave of vulnerability, helplessness and the inability to guess what’s next.

冠状病毒的幽灵，与以往全国陷入恐慌或灾难的时刻完全不同。我总听到有人把它与9·11相提并论，我也明白其中的原因：如今的恐惧与当时很类似，都是由脆弱、无助和不能预测未来的无力编织而成的糟糕感觉。

But there’s something crueler at work this time around, a psychological contradiction and emotional oxymoron that are peculiar to a pandemic.

但这一次有更残酷的东西在起作用，那种心理矛盾和情感冲突都是一场大流行所特有的。

At the very moment when many of us hunger most for the reassurance of company and the solace of community, we’re hustled into isolation. At the very moment when we most desperately crave distraction, many of our favorite means of release are off limits.

就在许多人最渴望得到陪伴和共同体带来的慰藉时，我们却被推入了孤立状态。就在我们最想拼命分散注意力时，我们最爱的许多消遣却都被禁止。

It’s not just concerts and sporting events that are verboten or canceled. It’s not just restaurant meals, birthday parties, wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs. It’s not just action flicks at the multiplex, which can no longer fling superheroes at us when superheroes are just what we need.

被禁止或取消的不只有音乐会和体育赛事。不只有餐馆的饭菜、生日派对、婚宴、成年礼。不只有影院里的动作片，在我们正需要超级英雄的时候，大荧幕上却再也不能展示超级英雄了。

To follow President Trump’s latest, newly responsible counsel is to avoid any gathering of more than 10 people. That rules out, say, a children’s soccer match. That forbids church. Americans who pray are no doubt doing that more and harder than ever, but not among the stained-glass symbols of God, in the comforting clutch of friends and neighbors, with the balm of a pastor, rabbi or imam close at hand.

按照特朗普总统最新的、刚刚开始负起责任来的建议，要避免任何超过10人的聚会。这就排除了如举办儿童足球比赛的可能。教堂活动也被禁止。毫无疑问，会祈祷的美国人比以往任何时候都更多、更努力地祈祷，但他们已经不能在彩色玻璃描绘的神的符号中，在朋友和友邻的抚慰怀抱中，在近在咫尺的牧师、拉比或伊玛目的劝慰中这样做。

No, we’re advised or, depending on the ZIP code, commanded to worship like we dine and do all else at this juncture – alone, or as close to alone as we can manage. It’s called social distancing, and if an odder, uglier phase has ever been coined, I can’t think of it.

不，我们得到的建议或者命令——取决于你在哪里——是在这个时候做礼拜就像吃饭或做所有事一样——独自或尽量独自去做。这被称为“保持社交距离”，我想不出一个更奇怪、更丑陋的杜撰词汇了。

“Social distancing” is another oxymoron, because how is distancing ever social? To pull together, we must stay apart. It’s an epidemiological necessity. It’s also a kick in the gut.

“保持社交距离”是另一个矛盾修饰法，因为有距离如何社交？要齐心协力，我们就必须分开。这是流行病学上的需要。但也是一个沉重的打击。

 

I’m writing this on St. Patrick’s Day in New York City, but there’s no parade, and on streets proudly teeming with Irish pubs, not one is open.

我写这篇文章时正值纽约市的圣帕特里克节，但城里没有游行庆典，在爱尔兰酒吧林立的街道上，没有一家营业。

Pubs, restaurants: After hurricanes, as we sift through the wreckage and commence the repairs, we’re typically encouraged to flock to them, both to bolster local businesses and reclaim a sense of normalcy.

酒吧和餐厅：飓风过后，当我们从废墟中搜寻并开始修整工作时，通常会鼓励大家涌向这些地方，这既是为了支持本地商家，也是为了找回常态。

But normalcy is the enemy in this pandemic. We have to behave abnormally to reach the far side of it. As my colleague Michelle Goldberg recently wrote, “This mass withdrawal is like social chemotherapy, damaging the fabric of our communal life while trying to save it.”

但在这场疫情中，常态是敌人。我们必须表现得异常才能到达它的另一端。正像我的同事米歇尔·古德伯格（Michelle Goldberg）最近所写：“这大规模的退缩就像社会化疗，在试图挽救公共生活的同时也破坏了它的结构。”

On Monday I spotted a friend on the street, and we walked hurriedly toward each other, propelled by the human instinct for connection. About four feet from her, I abruptly stopped, the siren of science suddenly blaring in my head. But she kept advancing, and I was paralyzed: Dare I correct and possibly sadden someone whose error was possibly a sign of how sad she already was?

周一，我在街上看见一位朋友，在人类寻求联系的本能驱动下，我们匆匆走向对方。在离她约四英尺远的地方，我硬生生停了下来，脑子里突然响起了科学警报。但她还往前走，而我动作僵住了：当一个人所犯下的错误可能只是说明她已经很悲伤时，我还要不要去纠正她，并可能还要让她更悲伤呢？

I did step slightly backward, and she seemed to register that, ending up maybe two and a half feet away: still too close, but less close than she might otherwise have been. We silently established some physical truce there. The etiquette of this pandemic is unwritten, and it’s brutal.

我确实稍微往后退了一步，她似乎也明白过来，停在了离我大约有2.5英尺远的距离：仍然太近，但比她本来可能的距离要远一些。我们在那里默默达成了某种身体的停战，这场疫情的礼仪是不成文的，也是残酷的。

In the wake of Sept. 11, many of us sought to counter the economic toll by patronizing the kinds of businesses in New York and Washington that were most affected. That’s tougher with this pandemic. The most affected business are the ones that are shuttered, and our interactions with them can’t be transferred entirely to the virtual realm, though I’m consoled somewhat to see movements to purchase gift cards redeemable for restaurant meals, movie tickets and such at some future, post-pandemic point.

9·11发生后，我们许多人都试图通过光顾纽约和华盛顿受影响最严重的各种生意来抵消经济打击。在这次疫情中，这么做更困难了。受影响最严重的企业是那些关门的企业，我们与他们的交互不能完全转移到虚拟领域，不过看到人们纷纷购买礼品卡，它们可在未来疫情结束后的某个时间点兑换餐馆饮食、电影票等商品，我多少感到安慰。

There will be such a point, right? We’ve been given no timeline, and that’s another special challenge of this crisis. It’s rolling rather than fixed, diffuse instead of discrete. It resists the drawing of any parameters around it. We have no idea what will ultimately be asked of us, so we can’t know what new emotional muscles to build, how strong they must be and what pace to take.

会有这样一个时间点，对吧？我们没有时间表，这是这场危机的另一个特殊挑战。它是流动而不是固定的，是扩散而不是离散的。它抵抗围绕它的条件限制。我们不知道最终会被要求做什么，所以我们也不知道该建立何种新情绪，这些情绪必须有多强烈，以及要以怎样的步伐前进。

I’m beyond grateful for the Internet and the ingenuity with which people are using it – for yoga classes held via Zoom web conferencing, for FaceTime cocktails, for free classes, musical performances and museum tours that civic-minded, generous individuals and organizations are presenting online.

我对互联网和人们使用它的创意感激不尽——Zoom网络会议举办瑜伽课程、FaceTime品鸡尾酒、免费网课、音乐演奏和博物馆观光，这都是有公德心且慷慨的个人与机构在网上提供的。

But none of these replace flesh-and-blood camaraderie, and I suspect they’ll become less and less satisfying as the lockdown on group activities grinds on.

但这都不能取代有血有肉的情谊，而我猜测随着对群体活动的封锁持续下去，这些消遣将越来越无法让人得到满足。

“Staying home,” “working from home” and “holing up” have sweet, nurturing rings when they’re voluntary and exceptional. But when the seclusion is compulsory and spans an unspecified progression of days, it’s a lonely, claustrophobic and crazy-making condition. It’s not heaven but hell.

“待在家里”“在家工作”和“宅起来”在自愿和偶尔为之的情况下听起来既讨喜又有助益。但当这种隔离是强制性的，且持续天数都不确定，它就成了一种孤独、幽闭恐惧和令人发疯的状态。那不是天堂，而是地狱。

Besides, we have many homes, and we’re now cut off from some of them. College students have been evicted from campus buildings that were perhaps their safest and most treasured spaces. Workers have been barred from offices where they toiled, yes, but could also lift their heads, raise their voices and have a conversation – a face-to-face chat – whenever they needed that nourishment.

再者，我们本有许多家园，但现在与其中一些切断了联系。大学生被赶出校园，原本那可能是他们最安全、最珍视的地方。办公室是员工辛苦工作的地方，但也是需要社交滋养的时候，他们可以抬起头、提高嗓门对话——进行面对面交谈——的地方。

The pandemic is asking us to dig deep and stand strong as it takes away some of the most essential tools for doing so. If I were in the mood for jokes, I’d call that a Catch-Covid-19.

这场疫情在要求我们挖个深坑、坚强站稳的同时夺走了这样做的一些最基本的工具。如果我有心情开玩笑，会把它叫做“Covid-19条军规”。

But jokes don’t fly right now. And in my eerily languid, palpably tense Manhattan neighborhood, it has been a few days since I heard the music of human laughter.

但现在不流行玩笑了。在我那懒散得可怕、又紧张得很明显的曼哈顿街区里，我已经好几天没听到人类的美妙笑声。

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