As the COVID-19 （Corona Virus Disease 2019） continues to spread around the world， the words epidemic and pandemic are showing up in news reports more often than they usually do. While the terms are closely related， they dont refer to the same thing.

新冠肺炎持續(xù)在全球傳播之際，epidemic和pandemic這兩個詞比往常更頻繁地在新聞報道中出現(xiàn)。盡管這兩個詞意思很相近，但二者所指并不相同。

As the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology （APIC） explains on its website， “an epidemic occurs when an infectious disease spreads rapidly to many people.” Usually， what precedes an epidemic is an outbreak， or “a sudden rise in the number of cases of a disease.” An outbreak can affect a single community or several countries， but its on a much smaller scale than an epidemic.

正如感染控制和流行病學(xué)專業(yè)人士協(xié)會在網(wǎng)站上解釋道：“當(dāng)一種傳染性疾病迅速傳播給許多人時，就被稱為流行?。╡pidemic）?！蓖ǔ?，epidemic發(fā)生之前會有疾病暴發(fā)（outbreak），即“某種疾病案例的突然增加”。outbreak可能影響到單個社區(qū)或幾個國家，但規(guī)模比epidemic小得多。

If an epidemic cant be contained and keeps expanding its reach， public health officials might start calling it a pandemic， which means its affected enough people in different areas of the world to be considered a global outbreak. In short， a pandemic is a worldwide epidemic. It infects more people， causes more deaths， and can also have widespread social and economic repercussions. The spread of the Spanish influenza from 1918 to 1919， which killed between 20 and 40 million people around the world， was a pandemic; more recently， the H1N1 influenza created a pandemic in 2009.

如果一場epidemic不能被控制住，還在不斷蔓延，公共衛(wèi)生官員可能就要開始稱之為大流行?。╬andemic），意思是這場流行病已經(jīng)影響到世界不同地區(qū)足夠多的人，到了全球性暴發(fā)的程度。簡而言之，pandemic就是全球性epidemic。pandemic感染的人更多，導(dǎo)致的死亡人數(shù)更多，還可能對社會和經(jīng)濟(jì)造成廣泛的影響。1918—1919年間的西班牙流感在全世界導(dǎo)致2000萬至4000萬人喪生，這種流行病屬于pandemic;離現(xiàn)在更近的2009年的甲型流感也是pandemic。

Heres where it gets a little tricky： Theres no cut-and-dried classification system for outbreaks， epidemics， and pandemics.

這里有個微妙之處：outbreak，epidemic和pandemic三者之間并沒有既成的區(qū)分體系。

Vocabulary

COVID-19? 新型冠狀病毒肺炎，簡稱“新冠肺炎”

epidemic? n. 流行病

pandemic? n. （全國或全球性）流行病;大流行病

outbreak? n. （暴力、疾病等壞事的）爆發(fā)，突然發(fā)生

repercussion? n. （間接的）影響，反響，惡果