疫情會持續200週？

我非常不喜歡批評時政，政府施政本來就有一定的困難，我寧可多給他們一些諒解和支持。但昨天看到衛生署這則消息，在疫情日益緊迫之際，也忍不住要說幾句話，

根據中央社記者陳清芳台北27日電：衛生署長楊志良今天說，以每週3萬人得新流感的速度估計，疫情會持續200週，新流感雖比一般流感稍微嚴重，但不像嚴重急性呼吸道症候群 (SARS)無藥可醫，他對台灣防疫有信心。

顯然楊署長是用線性模式來推估疫情，而沒有等比級數的觀念。

台灣從今年五、六月發現H1N1病例至今，目前已有38000人感染。而根據同一報導，行政院衛生署疾病管制局表示，電腦估計目前1週新增1萬5000個社區感染的新流感病例。顯然疫情並不是以線性方式增加，而更像是等比級數增加。

重點是一週新增數的變化情形。

陳建仁表示，發現群聚感染即快速對全體感染者投藥，可降低患者重症風險與感染他人機會，做得好的話，可將每週病例成長速度，壓制到一．五倍，估計十一月時將僅有一百多萬人感染，可順利銜接疫苗接種。

但是衛生署楊署長的疫情觀念卻是線性的，在這種情形之下所執行的政策，的確令人擔憂。他的記者會除了要人民安心，並邀請記者搭捷運去士林夜市之外，實在看不出具體防疫措施。人民只好自求多福了。

天佑台灣。

Translating the Untranslatable with the Gospel of St. Matthew

Stepped back a while from the trauma, I found that SiaoLin, the village destroyed by mud slides during Typhoon Morakot, is one of the places that have reserved the culture of Siraya, a disappeared aboriginal tribe once populated in southern Taiwan. Most Sirayans had been "Chinalized" for centuries, and their language has lost for about a hundred years.

The only documents left are contracts made by Sirayans and Chinese immigrants for property transactions, and The Gospel of St. Matthew in Formosan (Sinkang Dialect) by a Dutch priest Daniel Gravius. They are all Romanization Phonetics of Sirayan.(see this page) But no one in Taiwan now is able to read them.

About ten years ago, Mr. Edgar Macapili, a Bisayan aboriginal from Philippine, somehow found that he can read the Sirayan Gospel of St. Matthew. His wife Uma Tavalan is a Sirayan. They met each other in the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music in Philippine.

It took him seven years to identify about 3000 Sirayan words and publish the book "A Preliminary Inquiry to the Vocabulary of Siraya" (English title pending).

Isn't that amazing?

Here is a Sirayan song for rain.