评论丨在疫苗研发上全世界都是赢家

Editor's note: Michael Kremer is 2019 Economic Sciences Nobel Laureate. This is his speech at the TV forum "Science in an uncertain world" jointly held by the CGTN Think Tank and the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The COVID-19 epidemic is killing people every day that goes by. It's also generating huge economic losses. The International Monetary Fund estimates that losses are $500 billion every month. If you include the long-run health effects of people not getting medical care because health systems are shut down, of people not getting an education because of the effects of the epidemic, the effects are likely much larger. Some estimate it could go as high as $3.5 trillion per month. That means that any action we can take now to accelerate vaccination has huge benefits.

新冠肺炎疫情每天都在夺走生命，也对经济产生着巨大冲击。据国际货币基金组织的估算，疫情每月造成的经济损失在5000亿美元左右。另外，疫情还会对健康产生长期影响，因为医疗系统的关闭使人们无法得到医疗救治，还有人因为疫情无法接受教育。如果把这些都算在内的话，疫情的后果要严重得多——有人估计，损失可能高达每个月3.5万亿美元。这意味着，我们现在为加快疫苗接种所做的任何努力都是极为有益的。

But the world's done a great job developing vaccines and building capacity. Multiple vaccines have been developed, which seem to be safe and effective, in less than a year. Early in the epidemic, CEPI said that the world could manufacture perhaps 2 to 4 billion doses per year. Publicly announced capacity exceeds 10 billion doses. That means we can vaccinate the world population and end the epidemic much sooner than we would have anticipated. Somewhat surprisingly, some economic calculations suggest that even though we've already installed a lot of capacity, it's worth installing even more. Building capacity to produce an extra billion doses per year has hundreds of billions of economic benefits.

全球在研发疫苗和扩大产能方面取得了巨大成果。一年之内，多支疫苗完成研发，而且安全性和效果良好。在疫情初期，流行病防范创新联盟（CEPI）称全球每年或可生产20亿到40亿剂疫苗，但目前公开宣布的疫苗产能已超过100亿剂。这意味着，全世界人口完成接种并结束疫情的时间会远早于我们的预期。令人有些意外的是，有些经济计算的结果表明，虽然我们已经安装了不少生产线来提高产能，但还应安装更多。如果扩大产能，使每年的疫苗产量增加10亿剂，那么由此产生的经济效益能达到数千亿美元。

If we can produce enough vaccine to vaccinate the world in eight months rather than 12 months, that's a huge economic win. If you take a vaccine, you are benefiting yourself, but you are also benefiting me because I'm less likely to be infected. This is a situation in which ironically there's been a lot of discussion in the popular press about the race for the vaccine, who's going to be first to develop a vaccine. A race is exactly the wrong metaphor. That's what economics teaches us. A gold medal on a race is something that only one person can win. If one person wins, the other person loses. It's a competition.

如果我们能生产足够疫苗，在8个月内而非12个月内为全世界人口接种，将在经济上取得巨大的成功。如果你接种了疫苗，受益的不仅仅是你自己，还有我，因为我被你传染的几率会降低。目前有一个可笑的现象，那就是大众媒体有不少关于疫苗竞赛的讨论，谁会第一个开发出疫苗。拿竞赛做比是最不恰当的，是经济学的观点。一场比赛的金牌得主只有一名，一个人的胜出意味着其他人落败。这是一种竞争关系。

In the case of a COVID-19 vaccine, this is a race that the whole world will win, or the whole world is winning now, because science is advanced, and that's producing vaccines that the whole world will benefit from. Yes, the actual physical vaccine, that's something that only goes to one person at a time. So there is naturally competition about who will get the first doses of this. But the point is, we can produce enough vaccine for everybody in the world, so the scientific development of the vaccine is something that we can celebrate as a human species.

在疫苗这件事上，全世界最终都会是赢家。或者说，全世界现在就在赢得胜利，因为发达的科学正在帮我们生产造福全球的疫苗。没错，真正的疫苗每次只能给一个人注射，所以在谁先接种的问题上自然存在竞争。但最关键的问题是生产出足够为全世界所有人接种的疫苗。所以关于疫苗的任何科学进展都是值得全人类共同庆祝的。

As I noted, it's wonderful that we now have these vaccines, but the challenge is to produce more. And I think this is something where I think we've already seen the benefits of international cooperation in vaccines. Many of the vaccines that have been developed are the result of international cooperation. I say that in two senses. The first sense is that individual vaccines are often the product of multilateral, multinational cooperation: Pfizer, a company in the U.S., but also involved a company in Germany and also involves a Chinese role through Fosun in Shanghai.

正如我前面提到的，现在我们有了多个疫苗，这是好消息。但挑战在于增加产量。我认为在这方面，我们已经看到了国际疫苗合作的好处。不少疫苗都是在国际合作下开发出来的。我这样说有两层意思。一是各个疫苗通常是多边、多国合作的产物。比如辉瑞的疫苗，除了这家美国公司外，还有一家德国公司和中国上海的复星集团参与开发。

I think that's one level of the international cooperation, but there's another level which is, with many companies working to develop vaccines, if any of them succeed and these are companies around the world, we have at least the potential for – if any of those to succeed, it's like many shots on goal, and luckily many of them seem to be succeeding. But even if there was just one, that's something that could potentially benefit the whole world. But to generate the benefits for the whole world, what we need is – we need all the vaccines to go through international regulatory processes so they can be used anywhere.

我认为这是国际合作的一个层面。还有一个层面是，因为许多企业都在进行疫苗研发，如果其中任何一个获得成功，这些企业遍布世界各地，至少有一个有成功的可能性，就好像万箭向同一个目标齐发。幸运的是，其中似乎有很多企业有望成功。但即便其中只有一个成功，也可能造福整个世界。但为了实现这一目标，我们需要对所有疫苗进行国际监管，以确保这些疫苗可以用于世界各地。

If we think about lessons of this to prevent the next pandemic, I think one lesson is, we really need to try to develop systems so that wherever a vaccine is developed, it can be developed in a way and according to procedures so that it will be able to receive licenses everywhere in the world. That would require further cooperation, and I think that's a challenge for the world going forward.

如果说我们应该从这次疫情中吸取教训来预防下一次大流行病的话，我认为教训之一就是，我们需要建立一个体系，使无论在哪里研发出来的疫苗都能够按流程获得其他地区的使用许可。这需要进一步的合作。我认为这是接下来世界将面临的一个挑战。 

推荐阅读：

评论丨诺奖得主：中国在科研领域拥有巨大优势

评论 | 疫情为镜，科学有多重要？

数说评论丨新冠肺炎死亡率凸显美国种族不平等