Even though the coronavirus disease that has sickened tens of thousands of people in China is new to science, doctors have a pretty good idea about how to treat it.
尽管中国新出现的上万名新型冠状病毒这样的疫情在科学上并无先例，医生们已经想出了一种好办法来治疗它。
COVID-19, as it is now named, attacks the lungs.
这种病毒如今被命名为COCID-19，攻击的是肺部。
Doctors see similar symptoms from other diseases all the time, especially from serious cases of the flu.
医生们总是能看到类似其他疾病的症状，尤其是重感冒症状。
There's no specific drug that can kill this virus.
目前还没有能够杀死这种病毒的特效药。
So doctors provide what's known as supportive care, says Dr. Laura Evans, a critical care specialist at the University of Washington and a member of the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Leadership Council.
所以，医生们提供的是一种被称为支持形式治疗的手段，劳拉·伊凡斯医生说道，她是华盛顿大学的重症治疗专家，也是重症医疗领导委员会的一名成员。
"Supportive care is something we're quite used to," Evans says, "particularly in the intensive care unit environment, because we lack specific therapies for a lot of the things that we deal with in the intensive care unit."
“对这种支持性治疗我们是很熟悉的，”伊凡斯说，“尤其是在重症治疗病房里，因为在重症病房中，我们经常都缺乏针对那些症状的特效治疗。”
The strategy of supportive care is to do whatever's possible to keep vital organ systems functioning.
支持性治疗的策略就是想尽办法保持重要器官和系统的继续运行。
That means monitoring vitals such as temperature, blood pressure and oxygen levels "and trying to keep those as normal as we can," she says.
“这就意味着要监测一些重要指标，例如体温，血压和氧气水平，并尽可能让这些指标保持正常。”她说道。
Providing oxygen can be critical, particularly for a lung ailment.
提供氧气是很重要的，尤其是这种肺病来说。
The method can range from a simple tube in the nostrils (a nasal cannula) to much more aggressive approaches, such as a mechanical ventilator, which involves a breathing tube threaded into a person's airways.
供氧手段包括从简单的鼻部插管到一些更为侵入性的手段，例如医疗呼吸器，它会把呼吸管直接接入患者的气道。
"We're just trying to support their bodies through it while they deal with the infection themselves," she says.
“在病人自身对抗炎症的同时，我们会尽量给他们的身体提供支持。”她说道。
At the end of the day, it's the person's immune system, rather than the doctors, that does the hard work of fighting off an infection.
最终是靠病人的免疫系统，而不是靠医生来进行与病毒的艰苦战斗。
Drugs can help as well, whether it's for blood pressure, heart performance or infection control.
药物可以起到帮助作用，无论是控制血压，心脏功能还是炎症的。
"Sometimes these patients could have bacterial infections along with the viral infections," says Dr. Charles Dela Cruz, a critical care specialist at Yale University's School of Medicine.
“有时除了主要的病毒感染之外，病人还会伴有细菌感染，”查尔斯·德拉·克鲁兹医生说道，他是耶鲁大学医学院的重症治疗专家。
"They may or may not need antibiotics in certain situations."
“他们有时需要，而在有些情形下则不需要抗生素。”
He has helped analyze case reports of coronavirus from China.
他帮助分析了一些中国冠状病毒的病患报告。
About 80% of COVID-19 cases are comparatively mild and don't require major medical interventions, but the remaining 20% can be quite serious.
80%的COCID-19病例相对是比较缓和的，不需要太多的医疗干预，剩下的20%则比较严重。
Dela Cruz notes that patients who survive a crisis still may have a long road ahead of them.
德拉·克鲁兹提醒说度过了危险期的病人要恢复，还需要漫长的时间。
"They have a lot of consequences of what they've gone through, especially if they're mechanically ventilated for a long time," Dela Cruz says.
“在经过治疗之后，他们还是需要经历很长的恢复，尤其是那些接了很长时间呼吸机的病人。”德拉·克鲁兹说道。
"And so a lot of them have harder time to get back to their baseline. It sometimes takes weeks or even months. And there's also a lot of mental health distress."
“所以，他们中有些人的痊愈需要更久，有时会花几周甚至几个月的时间，同时他们还面临心理健康压力。”
People who have had a disorienting experience in the ICU may end up with delirium, which can have long-term consequences.
那些进过重症监护室的人们，有时候会患上谵妄症，这是一种长期的疾病。
Researchers in China are already testing drugs that target the coronavirus.
中国的研究人员已经在测试能够针对冠状病毒的药物。
One is an experimental medication from the United States called remdesivir, which was originally developed by Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola (but has not been approved for any purpose).
其中一种是来自美国的实验性的叫做伦地西韦药物，最初是由吉利德科学公司用来治疗埃博拉的，但还没有被批准用于其他用途。
These drugs stop the virus from replicating but can't undo damage that the virus has caused to a person's body.
这种药物可以阻止病毒复制，但对病毒已经对病患造成的伤害不起作用。
Dr. Fred Aoki at the University of Manitoba has studied antiviral drugs in the context of the flu, which has strong parallels to COVID-19.
曼尼托巴大学的弗雷德·奥吉教授曾在流感时期研究过抗病毒药物，当时的流感疫情跟现在的COVID-19很相似。
Those drugs are mostly effective within just a day or two of a person developing symptoms — that is, before the virus has had a chance to make someone really sick.
这些药物在病人发病的前一两天是最有效的，也就是在病毒还没有真正造成严重的后果之前。
They can prevent the virus from doing a lot of damage at that point.
我们可以阻止病毒对病人造成进一步损伤。
The drugs can also reduce the risk of death in hospitalized patients, Aoki says.
这些药物也可以减少已经住院的患者的死亡风险，奥吉说道。
"In those cases, anti-influenza drugs will have an effect out to five and six days after onset of illness and will produce a salutary change in the course of the illness."
“在这种情况下，抗病毒药可以在发病五六天内发挥作用，给症状缓解带来有益的作用。”
He says these flu medicines are actually most effective in people who are well but who have been exposed to the virus, say from a member of their household.
他说这种流感药实际上对那些从家庭成员中接触到病毒但还没有发病的人是最有效的。
The drug can actually prevent disease at that point.
这种药实际上在这时可以防止发病。
Researchers studied this effect during the pandemic flu a decade ago.
研究员们是在十年前流感爆发时研究发现这种效应的。
"These pills would reduce the illness in the other family members by about 70 to 80 percent," he says.
“这种药物可以减少把疾病传染给家庭成员的70%到80%的可能性，他说道。
Logistics are the biggest challenge, Aoki says, because if people have to wait for doctors' appointments to get a prescription, they've lost precious time.
后勤组织工作是最大的挑战，奥吉说道，因为如果人们要等医生的预约才能够拿到处方的话，他们就会错失宝贵的时机。
But even in the best of circumstances, we should not expect too much from antiviral medications.
即便在最好的情形下，我们也不能指望抗病毒药物发挥神效。
"In the case of influenza, where we have approved antiviral therapy, we still see people become very ill and requiring hospitalization or requiring intensive care," says Evans of the University of Washington.
“在疫情中，就算我们通过了抗病毒药物，人们还是会看到有人发病需要住院治疗或者重症监护，”华盛顿大学的伊凡斯说道。
"And we know thousands in the U.S. die every year from influenza. So I don't think we should think of an antiviral drug as a magic bullet here."
“我们知道，美国每年都有上千人死于流感。我想我们不能把抗病毒药物当成神效药。”
People will still need supportive care, she says, to buy them time to heal.
人们还是需要支持性治疗，她说，来让他们有更多的自愈的时间。
