This article explores how “flatten the curve” (FTC) visualizations have served as a rhetorical anchor for communicating the risk of viral spread during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning from the premise that risk visualizations have eclipsed their original role as supplemental to public risk messaging and now function as an organizer of discourse, the authors highlight three rhetorical tensions (epideictic–deliberative, global–local, conceptual metaphors–data representations) with the goal of considering how the field of technical and professional communication might more strongly support visual risk literacy in future crises.

中文翻译：

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“拉平曲线”COVID-19 可视化中的视觉风险素养

本文探讨了“拉平曲线”(FTC) 可视化如何成为传达 COVID-19 大流行期间病毒传播风险的修辞锚。从风险可视化已经超越其作为公共风险信息的补充作用而现在作为话语的组织者发挥作用的前提开始，作者强调了三种修辞上的张力（流行 - 协商，全球 - 本地，概念隐喻 - 数据表示）与考虑技术和专业交流领域如何在未来危机中更有力地支持视觉风险素养的目标。