國家地理:為什么病毒讓我們措手不及(1)

In the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, I couldn't bear to read about our collective early missteps. Not only because the implicit rebuke felt futile -- what was the point in knowing that the grim reality we were living could have been avoided? -- but because, in my case, it also felt deeply personal. Each article I read about missing the warning signs of a devastating new virus reminded me that decades ago, scientists had been worrying about that very thing, and a few science journalists were writing about their alarm. I was one of them.

在新型冠狀病毒剛開始大流行的前幾個星期，我不忍閱讀人類在疫病初期犯了哪些錯誤的報道。不僅因為其中隱含的譴責意味于事無補，知道我們本來可以避免現(xiàn)在的殘酷現(xiàn)實有何意義？也因為這件事對我而言還牽涉到深刻的個人感受。每看到一篇報道談論我們?nèi)绾问韬隽艘粋€威力強大的新病毒的警訊，都讓我想起這正是科學家?guī)资昵熬驮趽牡氖拢贁?shù)科學記者也報道了他們的擔憂，而我就是其中之一。

When I started researching this in 1990, the term "emerging viruses" had just been coined by a young virologist, Stephen Morse. He would become the main character in my book A Dancing Matrix, published three years later. I described him then as an assistant professor straight out of central casting: earnest, bespectacled, a man who lived life largely in the mind.

我在1990年開始研究這個主題時，“新興病毒”一詞剛由一位年輕的病毒學家斯蒂芬·莫爾斯提出，他成為我出版的《跳舞的基質(zhì)》書中主角。當時我筆下的他完全符合一名助理教授該有的樣子：認真、戴著眼鏡，大部分時間活在思考中。

Morse and other scientists were identifying conditions -- climate change, massive urbanization, the proximity of humans to farm or forest animals that were viral reservoirs -- that could unleash microbes never before seen in humans and therefore unusually lethal. They were warning that, thanks to an increasingly global economy, the ease of international air travel, and the movement of refugees due to famines and wars, these killer pathogens could easily spread around the world. Sound familiar?

當時，莫爾斯和其他科學家正試著找出哪些條件會讓從未出現(xiàn)在人類身上、因而異常致命的微生物傳染給人類，例如：氣候變遷、大規(guī)模都市化、人類和牧養(yǎng)動物或森林動物這些病毒宿主的親近程度。他們警告稱，由于經(jīng)濟日益全球化、國際航空旅行便利，以及饑荒和戰(zhàn)爭造成的難民流動，這些致命的病原體可能輕易傳播到世界各地。是不是聽起來很耳熟？

"The single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet is the virus." I used that searing quote from Joshua Lederberg, a molecular biologist who won a Nobel Prize for his work on bacteria, in my book's introduction. Back then I thought Lederberg might have been a bit melodramatic. Now his quote strikes me as terrifyingly prescient.

“人類統(tǒng)治地球的最大單一威脅是病毒。”這句直指核心的話是分子生物學家喬舒亞·萊德伯格說的，為我在書中前言引用。他因?qū)毦难芯慷@頒諾貝爾獎。他的話在我看來是可怕的未卜先知。