Omicron is really good at infecting people and doing it fast. So fast, in fact, that by the time you read this, chances are that cases have already reached a peak in your neighborhood.

奥密克戎很容易传播，而且传播得很快。事实上，它传播得如此之快，以至于等你看到这篇文章时，你所在社区的病例数很可能已经达到峰值。

While some countries are experiencing a rapid plunge in cases, it’s unclear how smooth the descent from the Omicron surge will be in others. Some places may continue to experience spikes in cases even after initial peaks or plateaus.

尽管一些国家的病例数正在迅速下降，但尚不清楚其他国家激增的奥密克戎病例数是否能顺利下降。即使在最初的高峰或平稳期之后，有些地方的病例数可能会继续出现高峰。

That said, Omicron’s extraordinary spread is likely to have important consequences for the future of the pandemic. By infecting large numbers of people quickly, it’s also generating immunity quickly. And that counts toward making Covid-19 a more manageable illness, since the layers of immunity may provide protection against future waves and variants. That will be scant comfort for people who suffer severe illness or worse this winter, but it does mean that after the Omicron wave, things will be different.

也就是说，奥密克戎的飞速传播可能会对疫情的未来产生重要影响。通过迅速感染大量人群，它也促使人体迅速产生免疫力。这有助于使新冠肺炎成为一种更易于控制的疾病，因为免疫可以提供针对未来疫情和变异株的保护。这对今年冬天的重症患者或情况更严重的人来说起不到太多安慰，但这确实意味着在奥密克戎浪潮之后，情况会有所不同。

Omicron has spread at a record pace, and the consequences have been grave for an exhausted health care system. As older groups are infected, things may deteriorate further, but the situation is still vastly better than if people hadn’t already accumulated some immunity against Covid.

奥密克戎以创纪录的速度传播，使医疗系统疲惫不堪，对其造成了严重影响。随着年龄较大的群体被感染，情况可能会进一步恶化，但这要比人们没有获得一定新冠免疫力的情况要好得多。

Data from scientists in Britain and South Africa suggest that the more experience people’s immune systems have in handling the coronavirus, the better protected they are.

来自英国和南非科学家的数据表明，人们的免疫系统在处理新冠病毒方面的经验越多，它们受到的保护就越好。

Every exposure, whether to the virus or a vaccine, reduces the likelihood of severe illness on subsequent ones. That’s because each time our immune systems “see” the spike proteins on the outside of the coronavirus, which is the target for all the vaccines in use, they get better at responding to them. Infections get less severe, on average, over time not just because the virus is changing but also because our bodies are getting better at handling it.

无论是暴露于病毒还是接受疫苗，每一次都会降低随后发生重症的可能性。这是因为每次我们的免疫系统“看到”冠状病毒外部的刺突蛋白，对它们的反应能力就更强。刺突蛋白是所有正在使用的疫苗的目标。平均而言，随着时间的推移，感染会变得不那么严重，这不仅是因为病毒正在发生变化，还因为我们的身体变得越来越善于处理它。

There’s no guarantee that this pattern will continue. Immunity can wane, and the virus can evolve to sidestep protection. But all the evidence scientists have seen to date indicates that the protection against severe illness is holding up. If that continues, the next round with the virus (and there will be a next round) could be blunted, meaning the impact will be less significant for health care.

但不能保证这种模式会继续下去。因为免疫力会减弱，而且病毒会进化以避开免疫保护。不过迄今为止，科学家们所看到的所有证据都表明，对重症的防御是有作用的。如果这种情况继续下去，下一轮病毒（肯定还会有下一轮）可能会减弱，这意味着对医疗系统的影响就不会有那么大了。

Some of this effect is already in play. You might have heard that Omicron is less severe than Delta. That looks to be correct, but once the role of immunity in preventing severe illness is accounted for, it is not that big a difference. The gap between cases and deaths during the Omicron surge in the United States and elsewhere is likely because of protection from prior immunity. People in South Africa, for example, likely experienced less severe illness from Omicron because so many had been infected with Delta.

其中一些效果已经在发挥作用。你可能听说过奥密克戎不如德尔塔严重。看起来的确是这样的，但如果考虑到免疫力在预防重症中的作用，差别就没有那么大了。在美国和其他地方的奥密克戎激增期间，病例数和死亡数之间的差距很可能是因为从先前免疫中获得的保护。例如，感染奥密克戎的南非人的症状可能不太严重，因为很多人都曾经感染了德尔塔。

Not everyone is equally protected. While immunity gained from prior infection is beneficial for preventing illness, it is not as beneficial as when combined with vaccination. For unvaccinated people with no immunity to the virus, Omicron can still cause severe disease. Too many people in the United States are unvaccinated. The number of Americans who have received booster shots is also far smaller than it should be, especially for older vulnerable people. This may be in part why the situation in the United States appears worse than in countries like Britain.

并非每个人都受到同样的保护。虽然从先前感染中获得的免疫力有助于预防疾病，但并不像与疫苗接种相结合那么有益。对于未接种疫苗、对病毒没有免疫力的人来说，奥密克戎仍然可以导致重症。美国有太多人没有接种疫苗。注射加强针的美国人数量也远远少于应有的数量，尤其在年长的弱势群体中。这可能是美国疫情似乎比英国等国家更糟的部分原因。

To get a sense of this, compare Britain’s recent mortality data to that of Massachusetts. The population of Britain is about 10 times that of the state. Britain is reporting an average of about 260 deaths a day from Covid-19 and going up. Massachusetts is reporting about 50 deaths a day, which means the state has about twice as many deaths per capita as Britain. Not coincidentally, people in Massachusetts are less likely to have received booster shots than people in Britain.

这一点可以通过将英国与马萨诸塞州最近的死亡率数据进行比较来了解。英国的人口大约是该州的10倍。英国报告平均每天有大约260人死于新冠肺炎，而且还在上升。马萨诸塞州每天报告约50人死亡，这意味着该州的人均死亡人数约为英国的两倍。并非巧合的是，马萨诸塞州的人注射加强针的比例低于英国人。

The immunity Omicron will leave behind might well be a major step toward making Covid a manageable illness by providing more protection against future surges and variants.

感染奥密克戎后获得的免疫力很可能会提供更多针对未来疫情和变异株的保护，这是使新冠成为一种可控制疾病的重要一步。

But the immunity generated by Omicron is not going to lead to the extinction of the virus. Pandemics do not end with the virus vanquished, a ticker-tape parade and a banner proclaiming “mission accomplished.” Instead of the virus going away, the nature of the disease it causes changes to a point that people consider it a tolerable risk, and people will disagree over what that means. Right now in many states, the number of hospitalizations has exceeded the peak of last winter, and there are about 2,000 deaths every day. Is that acceptable?

但奥密克戎产生的免疫力不会导致病毒灭绝。疫情不会以病毒被消灭、人们锣鼓喧天地庆祝并高举“任务完成”的横幅而告终。病毒不会消失，而是会导致疾病的性质发生变化，以至于人们认为这是可接受的风险，并且在这一点上人们会意见不一。目前在许多州，住院人数已超过去年冬天的高峰，每天约有2000人死亡。这是可接受的吗？

No one should confidently assert that Omicron signals the end of the pandemic, but we should be confident that future surges of infections, whether with Omicron or whatever variant comes next, will make fewer of us seriously ill than they would have before. That’s not to say that the rate of serious illness is the only measure that matters. There hasn’t been enough time to determine Omicron’s contribution to long Covid, for example. And the havoc that Omicron has sown is not trivial — we are seeing the effects in overwhelmed hospitals and closed schools.

任何人都不应该自信地断言奥密克戎标志着疫情的结束，但我们应该相信，未来的感染激增，无论是因为奥密克戎还是接下来出现的其他变异株，发展为重症的人数会比以前少。这并不是说重症率是唯一重要的衡量标准。例如，没有足够的时间来确定奥密克戎对长期新冠症状(long Covid)的作用。奥密克戎造成的破坏并非微不足道——不堪重负的医院和关闭的学校表明了它的影响。

Much better days may be ahead. But as the world has learned over the past two years, only fools with short memories make promises in a pandemic.

前方将会更加光明。但正如世界在过去两年中所学到的那样，只有健忘的傻瓜才会在疫情中做出承诺。