外刊阅读：受疫情影响焦虑和抑郁在全球扩散

PARIS — A recent cartoon in the French daily Le Monde featured a bedraggled man arriving at a doctor’s office for a Covid-19 vaccine. “I am here for the fifth shot because of the third wave,” he says. “Or vice versa.”文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/covid-anxiety-and-depression-take-hold.html

巴黎——法国报纸《世界报》最近刊登了一幅漫画，画中一名衣着不整的男子来诊所接种新冠疫苗。“因为出现了第三波疫情，我第五次来这里打疫苗，”他说。“也可能是第五波疫情，第三次打疫苗。”

His bewilderment as France suffers its fifth wave of the pandemic, with cases of the Delta variant rising sharply along with Omicron anxiety, captured a mood of exhaustion and simmering anger across the world two years after the deadly virus began to spread in China.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/covid-anxiety-and-depression-take-hold.html

在法国遭受第五波疫情、德尔塔变异株感染病例仍在急剧增加、奥密克戎变异株的出现令人担忧之际，这种困惑捕捉到了自新冠病毒开始传播的两年来，世界各地民众的疲惫感和心中的愤怒。

Uncertainty bedevils plans. Panic spreads in an instant even if, as with the Omicron variant, the extent of the threat is not yet known. Vaccines look like deliverance until they seem a little less than that. National responses diverge with no discernible logic. Anxiety and depression spread. So do loneliness and screen fatigue. The feeling grows that the Covid era will go on for years, like plagues of old.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/covid-anxiety-and-depression-take-hold.html

不确定性搅乱了计划。即使像奥密克戎变异株那样，人们对其威胁程度尚不清楚，恐慌也会瞬间扩散开来。疫苗看来是个解救，直到它们似乎不再那么有效。各国反应各异，看不出任何明显逻辑。焦虑和抑郁情绪在扩散。孤独感和屏幕疲劳也在扩散。人们越来越觉得，新冠时代会像过去的瘟疫那样持续多年。

Even in China, with no reported Covid deaths since January, some confess weariness with the measures that have kept them safe when so many others perished.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/covid-anxiety-and-depression-take-hold.html

即使在今年1月起就没有新冠病毒死亡病例报告的一些国家，一些人也承认，在世界各地有那么多人死亡的时候，保护他们的安全措施让人心生厌倦。

“I’m so tired of all these routines,” Chen Jun, 29, a tech company worker in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, said the other day. He was forced to take three Covid-19 tests in June following an outbreak in the city, and then had to quarantine for 14 days. Thumbtacks he used to pin on a world map to trace his travels have stopped multiplying. “I’m starting to think we’ll never see an end to the pandemic.”文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/covid-anxiety-and-depression-take-hold.html

“我已经厌倦了这些常规，”29岁的陈俊（音）前不久说，他在南方城市深圳的一家科技公司工作。深圳今年6月暴发小规模疫情后，他被迫做了三次检测，然后不得不隔离了14天。他曾用图钉在一张世界地图上标出他去过的地方，现在这些地方已不再增多。“我开始觉得疫情是没完没了的。”

This sense of endlessness, accompanied by growing psychological distress leading to depression, was a recurrent theme in two dozen interviews conducted in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. After two years of zigzagging policy and roller coaster emotions, terrible loss and tantalizing false dawns, closing borders and intermittently shuttered schools, people’s resilience has dwindled.

这种无止境的感觉，以及随之而来导致抑郁的、不断增长的心理压力，是时报在亚洲、欧洲、非洲和美洲进行的24个访谈中不断出现的主题。经历了两年反反复复的政策和起起伏伏的情绪、可怕的死亡和诱人的虚假希望、边境关闭和学校停课复课之后，人们的韧性已消耗得差不多了。

That is sure to pose new challenges for leaders trying to protect their people and their economies. Will the weary obey new restrictions, or risk seeing family and friends after months of forced separation? The question of just how draconian leaders can be when people’s mental health has become so fragile appears to be a core dilemma as the pandemic enters its third year.

这肯定会给努力保护本国人民和经济的领导人带来新的挑战。失去耐心的人们会遵守新的限制规定吗，还是会在被迫分离几个月后冒险去见家人和朋友？随着新冠疫情进入第三个年头，领导人在人们心理健康变得如此脆弱的情况下，能采取何种严格程度的措施，看来是个核心难题。

“I know it will only get worse, it won’t stop, the pandemic will only turn more life-consuming,” said Natalia Shishkova, a teacher in Moscow. “It is all chaos, like a fantasy film. You watch all these apocalypse films and realize their writers were real prophets.”

“我知道疫情只会变得更糟，不会停止，疫情只会变得更耗费生命，”莫斯科的教师纳塔莉亚·希什科娃说。“一切都很乱，就像一部奇幻电影。看过所有那些世界末日电影的人会意识到，这些电影的编剧才是真正的先知。”

Real progress in fighting the virus has been made. A year ago, vaccine rollouts were in their infancy. Today, about 47 percent of the world’s population is inoculated. If case numbers remain high, death rates have plunged. Yet life seems out of control.

抗击新冠病毒的努力已取得了真实进展。一年前，疫苗刚推出来。今天，世界约47%的人口已接种了疫苗。虽说感染病毒的人数仍很高，但病死率已大幅下降。然而，生活似乎失去了控制。

The pandemic not only makes this month’s vacation or holiday celebrations seem uncertain, but also sometimes overwhelms understanding. How to assess the avalanche of statistics, opinions, warnings, closures, reopenings? What to make of the big business Covid-19 has become, with its vested interests? What to do about the glaring inequality in vaccine distribution? How to avert one’s gaze from the discarded masks that still dot streets, the pandemic’s perennial detritus?

新冠疫情不仅让本月的节假日庆祝活动看起来不确定，有时也让人感到难以理解。怎么判定大量的统计数据、意见、警告、关闭和重新开放？怎么看待新冠病毒带来的既得利益大商机？如何解决疫苗分配明显不平等的问题？如何避免让视线落在这场疫情不断产生的废弃物——人们随手扔在路边的口罩上？

Once linear, life now seems circular. Schools open. They close again. Travel becomes easier, only for new obstacles to arise. Sickness from Covid-19 subsides, to be replaced by long Covid and now indications that even those who have recovered from the virus might get reinfected with Omicron. At the Paris laboratory of Maria Melchior, a French epidemiologist who specializes in mental illness, in-person meetings had just been reinstated when, this week, she was told they would cease, with a return to Zoom gatherings.

曾是线性的生活，现在似乎呈循环状。学校开课又停课。旅行变容易了，又冒出新障碍。新确诊病例减少了，却无法摆脱新冠病毒的长期症状，现已有迹象表明，甚至那些感染后康复的人也可能会被奥密克戎变异株再次感染。专门研究精神疾病的法国流行病学家玛丽亚·梅尔基奥尔的巴黎实验室刚刚恢复面对面会议，本周就收到了叫停通知，重新使用Zoom远程开会。

“We no longer know when we will get back to normal,” Ms. Melchior said. And what is normal now? She paused. “Well, at least a life without masks.”

“我们不再清楚何时能恢复正常，”梅尔基奥尔说。目前情况下什么才算正常？她停顿了一下。“唉，至少是不戴口罩的生活吧。”

In Kenya, with infections declining in October, President Uhuru Kenyatta lifted a longstanding curfew. Bars filled. Musicians lined up concert dates, as they have in many parts of the world, where theaters and opera houses have reopened. Spirits rose.

今年10月，肯尼亚的新冠病毒感染病例下降后，乌胡鲁·肯雅塔总统取消了实施很长时间的宵禁。酒吧里的人多了起来。肯尼亚的音乐家们和世界各地的许多同行一样，都在安排音乐会的日程。剧院和歌剧院重新开演。人们情绪高涨。

Then, the Omicron variant hit. Even before any cases were reported there, Kenya’s leaders announced plans to bar unvaccinated people from offices and warned of new holiday-season restrictions.

然后，奥密克戎变异株袭来了。甚至在肯尼亚出现病例之前，该国领导人就宣布了禁止未接种疫苗者进入办公室的计划，还警告将在节假日期间推出新的限制措施。

Corrie Mwende, a communications specialist in Nairobi, said she had felt like “freedom was coming back” after a long period when “you could say it was like the end of the world.”

在内罗毕从事通讯工作的专业人士科莉·姆温德说，在经历了一段“可以说就像是世界末日”的漫长时期后，她觉得“自由又回来了”。

Today she is unsure her hope will be fulfilled.

今天，她拿不准自己的希望还能否成真。

Such hesitation is pervasive. The pandemic began with evasiveness from the great powers of the 21st century, first President Xi Jinping’s China and then President Donald J. Trump’s America. Trust was dented, time lost. Ever since, a cohesive global response has appeared elusive.

这种顾虑普遍存在。新冠疫情开始时曾让21世纪的超级大国措手不及，先是在某国，后是特朗普总统领导的美国。信任受损，时机丧失。从那以后，全球似乎难以找到一致的响应。

China has pursued a zero Covid policy, virtually shutting its borders and deploying mass-testing, snap lockdowns and high-tech contact tracing. At the other extreme, Russia, despite a high rate of deaths, has done little to restrict movement.

**一直在执行新冠病毒感染病例清零政策，该国近乎关闭边境，启动大规模检测，快速封锁社区，使用高科技手段追踪接触者。俄罗斯的做法是另一个极端，尽管该国已有很多人死于新冠，但几乎没有采取什么限制措施。

The 27-nation European Union is split over whether to make vaccines obligatory, and policies vary widely: soccer stadiums are empty again in Germany, where infection rates have surged, but full in France, where they have, too, but a presidential election looms in four months.

欧盟的27个成员国在是否强制疫苗接种的问题上存在分歧，各国应对疫情的政策也有很大不同：德国的感染率飙升后足球场又空了；法国的感染率飙升后足球场还满着，而后者四个月后要举行总统大选。

Britain, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has veered between herd immunity temptations and the kind of periodic restrictions now in force again to combat the Omicron variant.

英国在首相约翰逊的领导下，一直在群体免疫的诱惑与间发性行动限制之间翻转，现在为应对奥密克戎变异株，该国再次处于行动限制之下。

In Brazil, whose president, Jair Bolsonaro, has persistently minimized the pandemic’s threat, the death toll has plunged to fewer than 300 a day from 3,000 in April. Samba concerts are back in the streets. Fireworks, after some back-and-forth, will light the sky over Copacabana beach to mark the New Year — unless some new disaster strikes.

巴西总统博索纳罗一直对新冠疫情的威胁轻描淡写，巴西每天死于病毒的人数已从4月份的3000降至不到300。桑巴音乐会已重返街头。经过了一番争论后，除非出现新的灾难，庆祝新年的烟花将再次照亮科帕卡巴纳海滩的天空。

Maybe that will be Omicron; maybe not. Some other variants have come and gone without driving the pandemic to terrifying new heights.

新的灾难也许会是奥密克戎变异株，但也许不是。有些变异株出现后又消失，并没有将疫情推向新高。

For now, every plan is a provisional plan.

眼下，所有的计划都是临时计划。

Conspiracy theories abound, in part because the pandemic has enriched the wealthy as markets have soared, and punished those without investments.

阴谋论大量存在，部分原因是随着股市大涨，新冠疫情让富人变得更富，而那些没有投资的人已受到了惩罚。

Yakov Kochetkov, head of the Center for Cognitive Therapy in Moscow, said, “In Russia there has been a strong increase in mistrust of vaccines, even the term ‘pandemic’ itself. This greatly affects the psyche.”

莫斯科的认知治疗中心主任雅科夫·科切特科夫说，“在俄罗斯，对疫苗的不信任大幅上升，甚至对‘疫情’这个词本身的不信任也在上升。这对人的心理有极大的影响。”

Just this month, a 45-year-old man reported to view the pandemic as a conspiracy opened fire at a Russian government office and killed two people after being told to put on a mask.

据报道，就在本月，一名将新冠疫情视为阴谋的45岁男子，在别人叫他戴上口罩后，在俄罗斯的一个政府办公室里开枪打死了两个人。

Anna Shepel, a Russian therapist, has observed her patients’ “obsessive thoughts, obsessive actions, fear of getting infected, fear of touching anything in public places.”

俄罗斯心理治疗师安娜·舍佩尔已在患者中观察到“强迫症想法、强迫症行为、害怕感染、害怕在公共场所接触任何东西”等症状。

Nevertheless, in a country with a deep vein of fatalism and stoicism, President Vladimir V. Putin has faced little criticism for his relatively lax response to the coronavirus.

然而，在一个有浓厚宿命论和坚忍传统的国家，普京总统对新冠病毒采取的相对宽松措施几乎没有受到任何批评。

In Italy, hit to devastating effect early in the pandemic, access to everything from movie theaters to offices has been strictly curtailed for anyone who does not have the “green pass” of the vaccinated. The government is promising a “semi-normal” Christmas without the need to resort to lockdowns. Still, the mood of the country is somber.

在疫情早期受到毁灭性影响的意大利，没有“绿色通行证”（证明已接种疫苗）的人被严格限制进入电影院、办公室等公共场所。意大利政府承诺让人们在不受行动限制的情况下过一个“半正常的”圣诞节。尽管如此，意大利人的情绪仍然阴郁。

Massimiliano Valerii, the director general of CENSIS, a Rome-based research group, observed that the pandemic had exacerbated anxieties about the future. “The social ladder has been blocked, the mechanism for being able to improve one’s position in life,” he said.

总部位于罗马的研究机构CENSIS的总干事马西米利亚诺·瓦莱里注意到，新冠疫情加剧了人们对未来的担忧。“社会上升的阶梯——人们得以提高自己生活地位的机制，被挡住了，”他说。

David Lazzari, the president of Italy’s psychologists’ guild, said recent studies in Italy showed the incidence of anxiety and depression had doubled since the pandemic began. For those under 18, levels had reached 25 percent. “One in four,” he noted. “That’s very high.”

意大利心理学家协会的戴维·拉扎里说，意大利最近的研究表明，自疫情开始以来，焦虑和抑郁的发生率翻了一番。在18岁以下的人群中，这一比率已达到25%。“每四人中就有一人，”他说。“这非常高。”

Among adolescents and young adults — stuck on their screens, often unable to date over the past two years, inundated with online friends but short of actual contact — anorexia and bulimia have spread, said Ms. Melchior, the French epidemiologist who focuses on mental illness.

研究精神疾病的法国流行病学家梅尔基奥尔说，在总面对屏幕的青少年和年轻人中，已出现了厌食症和暴食症的蔓延，这些人在过去两年里常常无法约会，虽然在网上有很多朋友，但缺乏实际的接触。

In France, she added, depression and anxiety are at about twice normal levels, in line with the Italian findings and a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

她补充说，在法国，抑郁和焦虑的发生率大约是正常水平的两倍，这与意大利的调查结果以及经济合作与发展组织最近的一份报告相符。

The surgeon general in the United States warned recently that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects as a result of the pandemic and other challenges experienced by their generation.

美国总医官最近警告，由于新冠疫情和这代人面临的其他挑战，年轻人的心理健康正受到“毁灭性的”影响。

Chanel Contos, 23, an Australian student in London who is uncertain whether she will be able to fly home this month, expressed acute frustration at having been told that “once we had adequate vaccines in the country you’re in, things would be OK.”

23岁的夏奈尔·康托斯是一名在伦敦读书的澳大利亚学生，她对自己本月能否坐飞机回家没有把握，对于“一旦你所在的国家有足够的疫苗，情况就会变好”的说法，她表示了极大的沮丧。

She asked a question frequently heard among her generation: “How much of our lives can we give up for this?”

她问了她那代人经常问的一个问题：“我们要为这个东西放弃多少生活？”

Governments are acutely aware of this frustration. Nicolas Franck, a French psychiatrist, said, “We fell short initially, now we are in the phase of excess precaution.”

各国政府已意识到这种挫败感的严重性。法国精神病学家尼古拉·弗兰克说，“我们开始时做得不好，现在我们是在过度预防。”

“People are so exhausted their greatest fear is not so much a new variant but a new curfew,” he added.

“人们已经疲惫不堪，他们最担心的不是新的变异，而是新的宵禁，”他补充说。

China, through its extreme measures, has been determined to move on. But a sense of normalcy remains elusive, and the second anniversary of the day the first reported patient experienced symptoms in Wuhan did not pass without comment.

其已决意在未来继续采取极端措施。但很难找到已经恢复正常的感觉，武汉通报了首例新冠病毒感染病例两周年的日子没有逃过人们的注意。

Hundreds of people posted messages on the social media account of Li Wenliang, a doctor in Wuhan who many consider a martyr for the official threats he received over his online attempts to warn friends — and by extension the world — of a strange new disease ravaging his hospital.

那天，数百人在李文亮的社交媒体账号上留言。许多人认为这名武汉医生做出了牺牲，因为他曾试图在网上警告朋友（进而警告全世界），一种奇怪的新疾病正在让他所在的医院遭受重创，但他却因此受到来自官方的威胁。

“I can’t believe that we have been wearing masks now for two years,” one commenter wrote. Another message reads: “Dr. Li, it’s been two years and the pandemic is not only still here but it’s getting more intense.”

“真难以想象我们戴着口罩两年了，”一位网友写道。另一个帖子写道：“李医生，两年过去了，疫情还是没好，反倒有点愈演愈烈的感觉。”

Dr. Li’s account has become known as China’s “Wailing Wall” — a place where people grieve and seek solace for all that has been lost in a remote world.

李文亮的账号在已有了“哭墙”的名声，人们来这里哀悼已经消失在一个遥远世界的一切，来这里寻求慰藉。