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The Next Wave
下一波浪潮
Rural America may be letting down its guard just as the virus hits
病毒刚刚来袭，美国农村似乎就已放松警惕
By Vera Bergengruen
文/维拉·伯根鲁恩
It's cattle-branding season in the panhandle of Nebraska, but this spring things look different.
现在正值内布拉斯加州的狭长地带给牛打烙印的季节，不过，今年的形势似乎有些不同寻常。
Usually, one of the biggest social events of the year in a state where livestock makes up two-thirds of farm revenue, brandings have been cut down to the essentials:
寻常的时候，打烙印都是这个畜牧业占到了农业收入2/3的州一年之中最为盛大的社交活动之一，今年，这一活动已经一切从简：
no children, no older crew members, and bag lunches instead of community gatherings.
没有孩子在一旁观摩，没有老一辈的把式在一旁指挥，大桌的宴席也变成了一个个的午餐包。
"This is not the year to have your daughter's friend from the city out to experience a branding," a local news article warned.
“今年可不是邀请你女儿的朋友从城里来乡下观摩打烙印的年份，”当地一篇新闻告诫称。
"Not taking precautions can mean the difference between life and death for some loved ones."
“不做好预防可能就意味着要从此与你心爱之人阴阳相隔。”
COVID-19 is not yet widely visible across the roughly 15,000-sq.-mile region,
幅员大约1.5万平方英里的内布拉斯加州内似乎尚未出现大规模的爆发，
which has only 75 confirmed cases as of May 12, but the danger of the pandemic is very real,
截至5月12号一共才75例，不过，大流行的威力倒是十分真实的，
says Kim Engel, the director of the Panhandle Public Health District.
狭长地带公共卫生区主任金·恩格尔说道。
There are only 31 ventilators for 87,000 people here,
人口多达8.7万人的该地区只有31台呼吸机可供使用，
so even a small spike could quickly overwhelm the local health system.
因此，即使是一个小高峰也能迅速让当地卫生系统变得不堪重负。
"We're still waiting for our peak," Engel says,
“我们还在等（疫情曲线的）峰值，”恩格尔说，
emphasizing that it won't look like the urban outbreaks that have dominated national headlines.
他强调说，即便当地真的出现峰值，也不会和霸占了各大头条的城市疫情的峰值一样。
"We're afraid we are really just starting on that upward curve."
“我们担心的是，我们的（疫情）上升曲线现在才真正开了个头。”
In mid-April, President Donald Trump declared that largely rural parts of the heartland were in the clear,
4月中旬时特朗普总统曾宣称，美国心脏地带周边农村为主的地区是没有危险的，
holding up regions like Engel's as ones that might reopen "literally tomorrow" because they looked "a lot different than New York."
为此他还举例称，一些地区，就像恩格尔所在的地区那样的地区说不定“真的明天”就能重新开放了，因为它们看起来“和纽约大不一样”。
Several governors who have resisted lengthy stay-at-home orders are wielding the lack of urban density as a reassurance.
拒绝长时间居家隔离命令的州长正在以当地并没有城市拥挤为由安抚人心。
"It's so important not to turn on the news and look at New York City and think that that's what Lemmon, S.D., is going to face in a month,"
“极其重要的一点是，不要打开新闻看到纽约市的疫情就觉得一个月后南达科他州莱蒙市也会变成那个样子，”
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said at an April 1 press conference.
南达科他州州长克里斯蒂·诺伊姆在4月1日的记者会上说道。
But as the country's leaders talk of reopening the shuttered economy,
然而，随着国家领导层越来越多地谈到重启停滞的经济，
it is precisely these regions of the U.S. that are among the most at risk.
美国的这些地区恰好就成了面临风险最大的地区之一。
A TIME analysis of county-level COVID-19 cases shows that the virus is only just now arriving in much of rural America.
从《时代》周刊对县级新冠病例所做的分析来看，新冠病毒目前才刚刚抵达美国大部分农村地区。
That means some of these sparsely populated areas could be letting down their guard just as the disease is about to hit.
这就意味着疫情才刚刚要来临，一些人口稀少的地区就已经开始放松警惕了。
Just over one month ago, on April 1,
就在一个多月前，准确地说就是4月1日那天，
every single county in America with more than 100,000 residents had documented COVID-19 infections,
美国所有居民超10万的郡县都出现了新冠肺炎感染病例，
while just 1 in 4 of those with 9,000 or fewer people had a confirmed case.
而居民规模在9000甚至更少的地区中只有1/4的地区出现了确诊病例。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
