我们仍未准备好应对下一次大流行
One Year Later, We Still Have No Plan to Prevent the Next Pandemic
托马斯·弗里德曼
2021年3月17日
Imagine that in December 2019 country X had a nuclear accident — a missile test gone awry. It resulted in a small nuclear explosion that sent a cloud of radioactivity around the world, causing 2.66 million deaths, plus trillions of dollars in health care costs and lost commerce that nearly triggered a global depression. What do you think we’d be talking about today?
想象一下，2019年12月，某国发生了核事故——导弹试验出了差错，导致小型核爆炸，大量放射性物质飘散到世界各地，造成266万人死亡，加上数万亿美元的医疗保健支出，几乎引发全球萧条的商业损失。你觉得我们今天会讨论些什么呢?
We’d be discussing a new global regime of nuclear weapons safety protocols to try to make sure it never happened again.
我们会讨论一个新的全球核武器安全协议机制，以确保此类事件不再发生。
Well, we just had the natural world equivalent of such a nuclear accident. It is widely suspected that a pathogen in a bat jumped to another animal to a human in China and then hopped onto the globalization express, causing extraordinary suffering and trillions of dollars in damage. And this happened after several decades of other pandemics set off by unhealthy human interactions with wildlife — with bats or civets in the case of Ebola and SARS-CoV-1 and most likely chimps in the case of H.I.V.
我们刚刚经历了一场自然世界的核事故。人们普遍怀疑，一只蝙蝠身上的病原体传染给另一只动物，再传染给一个身在中国的人类，然后跳上全球化快车，造成了巨大的痛苦和数万亿美元的损失。在此之前的几十年里，人类与野生动物的不健康互动也引发了流行病——比如与蝙蝠或果子狸的接触引发了埃博拉病毒和SARS-CoV-1病毒，而HIV很有可能来自黑猩猩。
As we have just hit the one-year mark since the World Health Organization declared SARS-CoV-2 — the pathogen that causes Covid-19 — a pandemic, it’s appropriate to ask what smart collective action are we pursuing to prevent this from ever happening again.
我们刚刚迎来世界卫生组织宣布导致Covid-19的病原体SARS-CoV-2暴发大流行的一周年纪念日，有必要提出这样一个问题：为防止这种情况再次发生，我们正在采取什么明智的集体行动。
The answer, as best as I can detect, is nothing — at least nothing meaningful.
就我所知，答案是什么都没有——至少没有什么有意义的行动。
And if you talk to wildlife veterinarians and other conservationists, they will tell you that the breakout of SARS-CoV-2 from an animal living in the wilderness to humans was not only NOT surprising, but that a similar outbreak could happen again soon. So, don’t throw away your leftover masks.
如果你与野生动物兽医和其他环保人士交谈，他们会告诉你，SARS-CoV-2从野生动物向人类的暴发不仅不足为奇，而且类似情况可能很快再次发生。所以，不要把剩下的口罩扔掉。
That was my takeaway from a global webinar I got to moderate a few weeks ago titled “Emerging Disease, Wildlife Trade and Consumption: The Need for Robust Global Governance” and subtitled “Exploring Ways to Prevent Future Pandemics.” It brought together some of the best experts on the interactions among animals, the wilderness and humans, capped by an inspiring talk from the famed primatologist Jane Goodall.
这是我在几周前主持的一个全球网络研讨会上获得的启示，这个研讨会名为“新兴疾病、野生动物贸易和消费：有力全球治理的必要性”，副标题是“探索预防未来大流行病的方法”。会议聚集了一些研究动物、野外和人类之间互动的最优秀专家，著名灵长类动物学家珍·古道尔(Jane Goodall)鼓舞人心的演讲成了会上的高潮。
I really like how one of the organizers, Cornell University’s Steve Osofsky, a wildlife veterinarian, summarized how the health of wildlife, the health of ecosystems and our own health are inextricably linked.
我非常喜欢活动组织者之一、康奈尔大学(Cornell University)的野生动物兽医史蒂夫·奥索夫斯基(Steve Osofsky)的发言，他总结了野生动物的健康、生态系统的健康和我们自身的健康为何密不可分。
To say that a majority of emerging viruses come from wildlife is not to blame wild creatures, explained Osofsky. It is to make the point that through our own behaviors we “invite these viruses into humanity’s living room: We eat the body parts of wild animals; we capture and mix wild species together in markets for sale; and we destroy what’s left of wild nature at a dizzying pace — think deforestation — all greatly enhancing our encounter rates with new pathogens.”
奥索夫斯基解释，我们说大多数新出现的病毒来自野生动物，但这并不是在责怪野生动物，而是为了说明，是我们自己的行为“把这些病毒请进了人类的客厅：我们食用野生动物的身体部位；我们捕捉野生物种，将它们混合在一起，在市场上出售；我们以令人目眩的速度摧毁剩下的野生自然——想想森林砍伐——所有这一切都大大增加了我们与新病原体接触的几率。”
What these three behaviors have in common, added Osofsky, is one “surprisingly simple underlying cause: our broken relationship with wild nature, often based on a hubris that we are somehow separate from the rest of life on earth.”
奥索夫斯基还说，这三种行为的共同点是出于“一个简单得令人惊讶的潜在原因：我们与野生自然的关系破裂，往往是基于一种傲慢，认为我们在某种程度上与地球上的其他生命是割裂的”。
It’s so simple: Forests, freshwater systems, oceans, grasslands and the biodiversity within them literally give us the clean air, clean water, climate-stabilizing buffers and healthy food we need to thrive, as well as natural protection from viruses.
道理很简单：森林、淡水系统、海洋、草原以及其中的生物多样性实际上给我们提供了繁荣发展所需的清洁空气、清洁的水、稳定气候的缓冲地带和健康的食物，同时也提供了天然的保护，使我们免受病毒侵害。
If we protect those natural systems, they will protect us. This truth needs to guide everything we do going forward to prevent another zoonotic-driven pandemic. That means taking three steps right now for sure:
如果我们保护这些自然系统，它们也会保护我们。我们需要用这个真理来指导我们今后所做的一切工作，以防止另一种人畜共患的大流行病。这意味着现在肯定要采取三个步骤：
First, recognizing that many of the zoonotic viruses that can cause pandemics can jump to humans via so-called wet markets, which sell a mix of domestic and wild creatures from the land and sea — all crowded together, along with the pathogens they carry.
首先，我们要认识到，许多可能导致大流行的人畜共患病毒可以通过所谓的生鲜市场传染给人类。这种市场出售来自陆地和海洋的家畜和野生动物，它们携带着病原体，被混合在一起出售。
A report Monday on NPR said Chinese officials themselves think a mammal from one of its wildlife farms — which breed civets, porcupines, pangolins, raccoon dogs and bamboo rats and were supplying wet markets in Wuhan — was the likely bridge carrier of the coronavirus from a bat to humans. Beijing has to curb its wildlife diet.
NPR周一的一篇报道称，中国官员自己认为，中国野生动物养殖场中的一种哺乳动物可能是新冠病毒从蝙蝠传播到人类的桥梁载体。这样的养殖场饲养果子狸、豪猪、穿山甲、浣熊和竹鼠，并供应给武汉的生鲜市场。北京必须控制对野生动物的食用。
“While we missed our chance to stop SARS-CoV-1 and now SARS-CoV-2 from emerging, how many more times must humanity allow this cycle to repeat?” asked Osofsky. “It’s time for markets selling wildlife (especially mammals and birds) in places where people have other sources of nutrition to be deemed totally unacceptable to humanity.”
“虽然我们错过了阻止SARS-CoV-1和现在SARS-CoV-2出现的机会，但人类还要让这种循环再重复多少次？”奥索夫斯基问道。“现在是时候了，在那些人们拥有其他营养来源的地方，应当让出售野生动物（尤其是哺乳动物和鸟类）的市场被视为完全不可接受。”
To be sure, there are people across the globe who need to eat wildlife for their sustenance and survival. So the world’s wealthier nations need to band together to help address the poverty and food insecurity that drives these practices, not only out of compassion but out of self-interest.
可以肯定的是，世界各地都有人需要食用野生动物来维持生存和生计。因此，世界上较富裕的国家需要联合起来，帮助解决导致这些行为的贫困和粮食不安全问题，这不仅是出于同情，也是出于自身利益。
Second, the wealthy nations also need to come together to bolster Interpol’s and other new efforts to wipe out the illicit wildlife-related supply chains feeding these wet markets with endangered wildlife species that are in high culinary and/or cultural demand.
其次，富裕国家还需要联合起来，支持国际刑警组织和其他新的努力，消除非法的野生动物相关供应链，这些供应链向生鲜市场供应在饮食和/或文化方面需求很高的濒危野生动物。
For too long, the traders and corrupt government officials who aid them have been allowed to privatize their gains from selling wild animals — like pangolins, whose meat and scales are cherished by some — and then socialize the losses when these same creatures spread viruses to us.
长期以来，贸易商和帮助他们的腐败政府官员可将出售野生动物（比如肉和鳞片被一些人所喜爱的穿山甲）所获收益据为己有，而当这些动物将病毒传播给我们时，损失则由社会承担。
America should threaten to ban all legal trade from any country that won’t stop its illicit wildlife trade. Loose nukes kill. So can caged pangolins.
如果哪些国家不阻止非法的野生动物贸易，美国就应当威胁禁止该国所有合法的野生动物贸易。失控的核武器会杀人，关在笼子里的穿山甲也可以。
Finally, there is deforestation. What Brazil does with its rainforest and what we do with our urban sprawl and what China does with its rapid urbanization into wilderness areas is everybody’s business. All three countries are removing natural buffers and expanding the interface, the touch points, between wildlife and people where pandemics emerge. That has to stop.
最后，还有森林砍伐。巴西如何处理雨林，我们如何处理城市扩张，中国如何处理荒野地区的迅速城市化，这是所有人的问题。三个国家都在消除自然缓冲区，扩大野生动物和人类之间的接触点，也就是大流行出现的地方。这种情况必须停止。
“If multinational companies can still undertake large-scale logging or mining in the world’s remaining great forests without paying for the very real risks those activities bring upon all of us, we will get what we deserve,” said Osofsky. “But if companies actually had to pay for the pandemic risks associated with these extractive activities, perhaps some of these projects would not be undertaken at all.”
“如果跨国公司仍然能够在世界上仅存的大森林中进行大规模采伐或采矿，而不为这些活动给我们所有人带来的真正风险付出代价，我们是会受到报应的，”奥索夫斯基说。“但是，如果公司真的必须为同这些开发活动相关的大流行风险买单，或许其中一些项目根本就不会进行。”
As Russ Mittermeier, chief conservation officer for Global Wildlife Conservation, remarked to me: “We marvel when a spacecraft lands on Mars to search for minute traces of life that may or may not exist.” At the same time here on earth, “we continue to destroy and degrade amazingly diverse ecosystems, like tropical forests and coral reefs,” that sustain and enrich us.
正如全球野生动物保护组织(Global Wildlife Conservation)的首席保护官罗斯·米特梅尔(Russ Mittermeier)对我说的：“当宇宙飞船降落在火星上，寻找可能存在或不存在的微小生命痕迹时，我们感到惊奇。”与此同时，在地球上，“我们继续破坏各种各样的生态系统，令其退化，比如热带森林和珊瑚礁。”然而正是这些生态系统维持着我们的生命，丰富着我们的生活。
Halting that practice is the only truly sustainable vaccine against the next pandemic. In other words, it’s time that we stop looking for intelligent life on Mars and start manifesting it here on planet earth.
停止这种做法是对抗下一次大流行的唯一真正可持续的疫苗。换句话说，与其在火星上寻找智慧生命，不如在地球上展现点智慧。
