Galea Sandro
Robert A. Knox Professor, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston.
Recenti Prog Med. 2021 Jun;112(6):413-415. doi: 10.1701/3620.36023.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced fully vaccinated people need no longer wear a mask or physically distance to prevent the spread of covid-19 (with the exception of places where such measures remain required by law). The unexpected announcement does present an opportunity to interrogate why we have done what we have done during the pandemic, and what we want, or perhaps should want, to guide our decision-making during these times. The key question is "what is health for?". Also, covid-19 confronted us with a question which engages directly with this issue of tradeoffs and balance: what are we willing to give up in order to get to health? How we respond depends on how we define health. Health could be better defined as an activity capable of balancing risk mitigation with the reasonable risk inherent in the pursuit of a full life, with health seen as a means to live a fulfilling life. If we truly believe that health matters, our pursuit of it should reflect the understanding that we do not live to be healthy: we aspire to be healthy so we can live.
美国疾病控制与预防中心宣布，完全接种疫苗的人无需再佩戴口罩或保持社交距离以预防新冠病毒传播（法律规定仍需采取此类措施的场所除外）。这一出人意料的宣布确实提供了一个契机，来审视我们在疫情期间为何如此行事，以及我们想要或或许应该想要什么来指导我们在这些时期的决策。关键问题是“健康的目的是什么？”。此外，新冠疫情让我们面临一个直接涉及权衡与平衡问题的疑问：为了实现健康，我们愿意放弃什么？我们的应对方式取决于我们如何定义健康。健康可以更好地定义为一种能够在降低风险与追求充实生活所固有的合理风险之间取得平衡的活动，健康被视为过上有意义生活的一种手段。如果我们真的认为健康至关重要，我们对健康的追求应该反映出这样一种认识，即我们不是为了健康而活着：我们渴望健康是为了能够好好生活。
