How to understand the nature and trend of the current epidemic situation of COVID-19 infection? Can you cover the quilt and sweat during high fever? How to relieve common symptoms such as pain, cough and fatigue? How do the elderly respond to COVID-19 infection? Tong Xiaolin, an academician of the CAS Member, responded from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that COVID-19 infection belongs to the cold damp epidemic, and traditional Chinese medicine can treat the underlying symptoms. Focusing on the "cold damp epidemic", grasp the initiative of treatment, ask: how to treat the current COVID-19 infection? What is the pathological mechanism inside? Tong Xiaolin: In this round of epidemic, patients often suffer from chills, fever, headache, body pain and other diseases. The body of the tongue is generally light, dark, fat, and the tongue coating is white, thick and greasy. In addition, many patients still have low fever, muscle soreness, sore throat, cough and other symptoms after the high fever subsides, and generally have fatigue, shortness of breath, and a considerable number of patients have gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. Based on the comprehensive judgment of multidimensional parameters, these phenomena indicate that COVID-19 infection does not belong to epidemic febrile disease, damp pestilence, nor typhoid, but cold damp pestilence. Q: Why does "cold and wet" cause high fever instead? Tong Xiaolin: It is not only the pathogenic heat that can cause high fever. The stagnation of pathogenic cold can also cause high fever. Therefore, in combination with the current national recommended prescriptions and the typhoid classic prescriptions commonly used by clinicians, such as Mahuang Decoction, Gegen Decoction, Daqinglong Decoction, to treat COVID-19 high fever, it can also be found that this disease does not conform to the principle of "first treatment of febrile disease, avoid using Magui", further proving that the nature of Xinguan disease is cold. Q: Patients in this epidemic often have sore throat, commonly known as "razor throat". What is the cause? How to treat it? Tong Xiaolin: This is not caused by the direct invasion of heat poison into the throat, but the result of cold, damp and heat. The reasons are: first, the person with heavy body heat and cold feels the "cold, damp and bitter" caused by the "cold enveloping fire", second, the excessive sweating caused by the heat deficiency, and third, the disease poison caused by the excessive use of bitter and cold drugs is deep, depressed and heat. Therefore, many people often use cold and cool drugs such as honeysuckle and forsythia to clear heat and detoxify after suffering from pharyngalgia because they do not know where the "heat" comes from, but often aggravate the disease. This is because the characteristics of COVID-19's "cold damp epidemic" are unknown. Therefore, only by sticking to the "cold and damp epidemic" can we grasp the initiative of treatment; Only by recognizing that "cold dampness hurts yang" is the main line, can we not be confused by the symptoms of the disease, and achieve change by knowing how often, and the treatment will be more convenient. At the beginning of COVID-19, try to avoid using drugs or food with cold properties; For clinicians, it is more necessary to change the treatment method that used to treat febrile diseases in the early stage of the disease, such as pungent cooling to relieve the symptoms or clearing away heat and detoxicating, but first to dissipate cold and remove dampness. For the treatment of COVID-19 infection, the most fundamental is "Kaida Membara". Usually, after we have a cold and fever, we often cover the quilt and sweat a little. For the fever symptoms caused by COVID-19, can this work? Tong Xiaolin: It is helpful, but not completely effective. COVID-19 belongs to the cold and damp, and invades the body through the nose and mouth. It lies between the surface and the inside. Pathogens come from the surface of the membrane, or from the surface of the skin and mucous membrane, which is similar to the wind-cold cold; Or on the surface of respiratory mucosa, similar to wind