福奇：病毒不来自中国实验室

近日，美国国家过敏症与传染病研究所所长安东尼·福奇教授在接受美国《国家地理》杂志采访时，再次否认了“新冠病毒是人为制造”的阴谋论，对近期美国官员坚持的新冠病毒来自于中国武汉实验室事故理论泼了冷水。

 

Anthony Fauci has become the scientific face of America’s COVID-19 response, and he says the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China.

安东尼·福奇已经成为美国应对新冠肺炎疫情的科学代表，他说，最有力的证据表明，造成疫情的新冠病毒并不是中国的实验室人为制造的。

 

Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shot down the discussion that has been raging among politicians and pundits, calling it “a circular argument” in a conversation Monday with National Geographic.

美国国家过敏症及传染病研究所所长福奇驳斥了政界人士和权威人士的激烈讨论，他在周一（5月4日）接受《国家地理》采访时称，这是一种“循环争论”。

 

 

 

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” Fauci says. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn’t entertain an alternate theory - that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.

福奇说：“通过观察蝙蝠中病毒的进化过程及病毒现在的情况，（根据这些科学证据）几乎可以肯定地说，新冠病毒并非起源于人为制造或蓄意操纵。关于病毒逐步进化的一切证据都强有力地表明，该病毒首先是自然进化，然后越界到人类。”基于这些科学证据，他也不支持另一种理论，即有人在野外发现了新冠病毒，把它带到实验室，之后意外泄露。

 

Fauci is most concerned that the United States will be put to the test this fall and winter by a second wave of COVID-19 if the country does not blunt the infection rate by the summer.

福奇最担心的是，如果美国到今年夏天还不能降低感染率的话，将在今年秋天和冬天经受第二波新冠肺炎的考验。

 

“Shame on us if we don't have enough tests by the time this so-called return might occur in the fall and winter,” he says, advising that the US needs to make sure we not only have an adequate supply of tests available before a second wave hits, but also a system for getting those tests to the people who most need them.

他说：“如果我们到那时还没有进行足够多的测试，第二波新冠肺炎可能会在秋季和冬季到来，这将令我们蒙羞。”他建议，在第二波疫情到来之前，美国不仅需要确保测试量充足，也需要建立起使最需要检测的人得到检测的机制。

 

“I don’t think there’s a chance that this virus is just going to disappear,” he says. “It’s going to be around, and if given the opportunity, it will resurge.” As such, Fauci says the US should also focus this summer on properly reinforcing the nation’s health care system, ensuring the availability of hospital beds, ventilators, and personal protective equipment for health care workers.

他说：“我不认为这种病毒会消失。它就在附近，如果有机会，它就会卷土重来。”因此，福奇说，美国今年夏天还应该把重点放在适当加强国家的医疗保健系统上，确保有足够的病床、呼吸机和医护人员的个人防护用品。

 

 

 

He also stressed the importance of continuing to social distance everywhere until the case counts start to fall in cities and states. The US witnessed about 20,000 to 30,000 new cases every day in the month of April, suggesting the country is stuck in its peak.

他还强调，各地应继续保持社交距离，直到确诊病例在各市各州开始下降。4月份，美国每天新增确诊病例约2万至3万例，表明其新冠疫情仍处于高峰期。

 

Still, he remains optimistic that a vaccine will be ready within an historically short time frame, citing one promising candidate that he thinks may move into advanced clinical trials by the early summer. Fauci has said that he thinks a final vaccine could be available for general use as early as January, which would break records for the speed at which previous vaccines were developed.

不过，他仍然乐观地认为，疫苗将在有史以来非常短的时间内研发出来。他提到了一种很有希望的备选疫苗，认为可能在夏初进入临床试验。福奇表示，他认为最终的疫苗最早可于明年1月大量投入使用，这将打破以往疫苗研发速度的纪录。

 

One reason for his confidence is the “impressive” results being seen now in animals tested with a vaccine candidate made by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna Therapeutics, which brought it into human trials in a record 42 days. The candidate is what is known as an mRNA vaccine - a drug that uses snippets of a virus’s genetic material - rather than the dead or weakened virus itself - to build the proteins that trigger the body’s protective immune response.

他有信心的一个原因是，马萨诸塞州剑桥市Moderna Therapeutics公司生产的一种备选疫苗进行的动物试验结果“引人瞩目”，使其创纪录地在42天内进入人体试验阶段。这种疫苗被称为mRNA疫苗，是一种利用病毒遗传物质的片段而不是死亡或被削弱的病毒本身来制造蛋白质，从而触发人体保护性免疫反应的疫苗。

 

To date, no type of mRNA vaccine has been licensed for use in humans, but Fauci believes there is great promise for this technology targeting the coronavirus, based in part on his experience developing treatments for HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and ‘90s.

到目前为止，还没有任何类型的mRNA疫苗被批准用于人类，但基于他在20世纪80年代和90年代研究艾滋病疗法的经验，福奇相信这项针对新冠病毒的技术前景明朗。

 

“For some reason that we’re still struggling with, the body does not make an adequate immune response to HIV,” he says. To fight off that virus, a vaccine has to work better than the body’s own natural response. By contrast, “it’s obvious that many people make a very adequate immune response” to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the animal trials so far show that modest doses of the mRNA vaccine for coronavirus have also generated a strong immune response.

他说：“由于某些一直让我们不解的原因，人体无法对艾滋病毒做出充分的免疫反应。”为了对抗这种病毒，疫苗必须比人体自身的自然反应更有效。相比之下，“很明显，许多人对新冠病毒做出了非常充分的免疫反应”，而迄今为止的动物试验表明，适量的新冠病毒mRNA疫苗也产生了强烈的免疫反应。

 

He adds that NIAID is still developing and supporting multiple vaccine efforts, in case those that go into trials soonest don’t ultimately prove safe and effective. “You want a lot of shots on goal. We want four or five candidates that we put out there all within a reasonable time,” he says.

他补充说，美国国家过敏症及传染病研究所仍在研发和支持多种疫苗，以防那些最快进入试验的疫苗最终被证明不安全和无效。“你需要很多尝试的机会。我们希望在合理的时间内推出4到5种备选疫苗。”

 

Fauci told National Geographic he’s concerned about states rushing to reopen before their infection rates fall. He also shared how he manages the barrage of new scientific information being released about COVID-19, and how his family and faith keep him going despite his increasingly hectic schedule.

福奇告诉《国家地理》杂志，他对于美国各州在感染率下降之前急于重新开放表示担忧。他还分享了自己如何处理关于新冠肺炎的大量新科学信息，以及尽管日程日益繁忙，家庭和信仰如何让他坚持下去。