After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, many journalists, community leaders and activists all had the same suspicion. More people were dying than the U.S. government was saying.
玛丽亚飓风袭击波多黎各后，许多新闻记者，社区领袖和活动人士都抱有同样的怀疑：死亡人数比美国政府说的还要多。
I was reminded of that disconnect between truth and reality -- and the difficulties of accounting for disaster-related deaths -- this week as researchers from Yale School of Public Health and the Washington Post published a report looking at "excess deaths" from Covid-19.
耶鲁大学公共卫生学院和《华盛顿邮报》的研究人员，发表了一篇关于新冠病毒（Covid-19）的“过分死亡”的报告，这让我想起了真相与现实之间脱节的问题，以及对与灾难有关的死亡进行核算的困难。
病毒总是很难“捉摸”！
It may seem a callous term, but "excess deaths" are critical to understanding this pandemic. The term refers to the number of deaths that are found to be in "excess" of the normal death rate for a particular place during a certain period of time.
这似乎是一个残酷的术语，但是，“过度死亡”对于理解这种流行病至关重要。 该术语是指在特定时间段内，发现特定地点的正常死亡率“超标”的死亡人数。
This is a statistical estimate, not a case-by-case accounting. Yet many epidemiologists and medical examiners consider it to be the best measure of pandemic- and disaster-related deaths. It's not hard to see why. It's easier to measure the total number of deaths and compare those to a past baseline than it is to test every victim, to review their medical records, to interview their family members and to come to an objective assessment. That case-by-case methodology is extremely hard to carry out in practice and often will come up short.
这是一个统计估计，而不是逐案核算。 然而，许多流行病学家和医学检查人员认为，这是与大流行和灾害相关死亡计算的最佳方法。 不难看出原因， 测量死亡总数，并将其与过去的基准进行比较，比测试每个受害者、检查他们的病历，与他们的家庭成员进行访谈，以及进行客观的评估要容易得多。 在实践中，这种个案研究方法极难实施，而且往往会徒劳无功。
The Yale figures work like that, too. The researchers found 15,400 excess deaths in the United States from March 1 through April 4, the early weeks of the coronavirus's rampage through this country. During that time, only about half that many deaths -- 8,128 -- had been attributed to Covid-19, according the report.
耶鲁的数字也是如此。 研究人员发现，从3月1日到4月4日，即美国冠状病毒横扫美国各地的最初几周，美国有15400多人死亡。 但官方报告称，在那段时间里，只有8128人死于新冠病毒。
The figures suggest the pandemic has been far worse than reported.
这些数字表明，这一大流行病远没有报告的那么严重。
真的不严重？
Press conferences with politicians and health officials often begin with them. They're frequently cited down to a single digit, leading to the impression that we know exactly who's dying and where and when. Yet, these figures do not represent an actual on-ground reality.
在政治家和卫生官员的新闻发布会上，他们经常引用这些数字，给人的印象是：我们确切地知道谁快死了，何时何地。 但是，这些数字却并不代表实际的现实情况。
That's a problem, said Redlener, from Columbia, in part because governors and other public officials are relying on these figures, along with models used to project how the coronavirus will spread through populations, to decide how and when to "open up" from quarantine.
来自哥伦比亚的雷德勒纳说，这是一个问题，部分原因是州长和其他公职人员，都依靠这些数据，并用来它们来预测冠状病毒“如何在人群中传播”的模型，来决定如何以及何时从隔离区“解封” 。
"There will be people that will die if we open too early. And there will be people who go bankrupt if we open too late," he said.
他说：“如果我们开得太早，将会有人丧生。如果我们开得太晚，将会有人破产。”
横竖都是问题！
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——小布丁丁怕学习：我们一起撸力！