国家地理:新冠病毒和洗手文化(3)

If you add up all the situations in which international authorities such as UNICEF recommend washing hands during this pandemic -- after visiting a public space or touching a surface outside the home, after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose, and of course after using the toilet or taking out garbage and before and after eating -- it easily amounts to at least 10 times a day.

如果把联合国儿童基金会这类国际权威机构建议民众在这次疫情期间的洗手时机加总起来，那么每天随便都要洗至少十次手--到过公共场所或在屋外触摸任何物品之后；咳嗽、打喷嚏或擤鼻涕之后；当然还有上厕所或倒垃圾之后，以及用餐前后。

That's a lot of handwashing. A single 20-second wash plus wetting and rinsing uses at least two liters of water, more than half a gallon. A family of four washing 10 times a day each would use 80 liters just for handwashing. In the United States, where the average person consumes up to 100 gallons daily (around 379 liters), that's no big deal. In much of India and other parts of the developing world, it's an unimaginable luxury.

这表示要洗很多次手。一次20秒的洗手加上把手弄湿及冲干净，至少要用掉2公升的水。在美国，平均每人每天消耗100加仑（约379公升），这没什么大不了的。若是一家四口每人每天洗十次手，光是洗手就要用掉80公升的水。在印度多数地区和其他发展中国家，这是难以想象的奢侈。

Last year, after Chennai, India's sixth largest city, ran out of water during a prolonged drought, NITI Aayog, an Indian governmental think tank, released a report on the country's ongoing water crisis. It found that nearly 60 percent of India's urban households don't have piped running water. In the countryside, the figure rises to 82 percent, or 146 million rural homes without an adequate water supply.

去年，在印度第六大城市金奈因长期干旱而缺水后，印度国家转型委员会（印度政府智库）发表了一篇关于该国持续存在的缺水危机的报告。报告发现，印度有将近60%的都市家庭没有自来水。在乡村地区，这个数字攀升至82%，也就是1亿4600万个乡村家庭没有足够供水。

Here's just one example of what that life looks like. In the village of Kaithi, in the Bundelkhand region in north-central India, there is one shared tap for every five households. Bundelkhand has suffered 13 droughts in the past two decades. Water shortage is a way of life here.

这里有个例子说明这种生活样貌。在印度中北部邦德尔肯地区的凯提村，每五个家庭共享一个水龙头。在过去20年里，邦德尔肯地区已经历过13次旱灾。缺水是这里的生活常态。