https://mp.weixin.qq.com/mp/readtemplate?t=pages/video_player_tmpl&action=mpvideo&auto=0&vid=wxv_1900681587734691842
On May 26, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to trace the origin of COVID-19. That includes investigating a theory that says the virus emerged from a lab in Wuhan China instead of emerging in nature.5月26日，美国总统拜登指示美国情报机构调查新冠肺炎病毒起源。确认病毒是否从中国武汉的一个实验室泄漏，而非源于自然界。Don’t get me wrong, guys. It’s important to get to the bottom of things to find the source of the virus that killed millions. It could help us prevent the next one.请大家不要误会我的意思。弄清楚让数百万人丧生的病毒来源这一事情真相很重要，它可以避免我们重蹈覆辙。But the timing of the Biden probe brought many questions too.Like why investigate now a lab-leak theory that was declared by most mainstream scientists as either unlikely, extremely unlikely or outright conspiracy theory?例如，全球权威科学家早已宣布新冠病毒从实验室泄漏这一说法不可能，极不可能，甚至完全是阴谋论，那又为什么要在此时再度调查病毒是否是从实验室泄露的呢？A short answer is the probe has been sought by many Republicans and some Democrats too and was prompted by a Wall Street Journal report three days earlier, on May 23rd, saying three Chinese scientists in Wuhan Institute of Virology fell sick in November 2019.简单来说，此次调查是很多共和党人和部分民主党人共同推动，继而又被《华尔街日报》三天前的一篇报道推波助澜。5月23日，《华尔街日报》一篇报道称，武汉病毒研究所的三名研究人员于2019年11月患病。The symptoms, the report says, could be COVID, although it could also be seasonal illnesses like a flu.报道称，他们的症状可能是新冠肺炎，但也可能只是季节性流感。Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who was on a WHO mission to Wuhan attributed the sickness of the three Chinese doctors to regular, seasonal sicknesses, saying “there were occasional illnesses because that’s normal. There was nothing that stood out.”马里恩·科普曼斯，世界卫生组织赴武汉国际专家组成员中的荷兰病毒学家表示，这三名中国研究人员的疾病是常规的季节性疾病，她说：“他们只是偶然生病了，这很正常。没什么大问题。”Shi Zhengli, China’s top coronavirus expert at Wuhan Institute of Virology said all staff had tested negative for Covid-19 antibodies.武汉病毒研究所研究员石正丽表示，所有工作人员的新冠肺炎病毒抗体检测结果均为阴性。Some folks would say, wait a minute, all Chinese sources must be taken with a pinch of salt these days. And they have a right to think so. But what about American sources?有些人会说，等等，对待中国的消息来源，那都得表示怀疑。人们有权利这么想，可对来自美国的消息源难道就不用质疑了吗？This Wall Street Journal report on sick Chinese scientists was based on a “previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report”. So it was a government leak-turned-news....an intentional leak from the U.S. intelligence community that became a media story that in turn prompted Biden to order an intelligence investigation.《华尔街日报》关于中国研究人员生病的消息源是“先前未披露的一份美国情报报告”，所以，这则新闻报道本来就属于美国政府的“漏题”，而且是美国情报机构故意漏题，喂料给媒体发文炒作，文章又助推拜登命令情报界调查病毒来源。Are you having a déjà vu? More about that later.听上去是否有一种似曾相识的既视感？这个咱稍后再聊。Peter Daszak, a WHO investigator who’s been to Wuhan said on May 27th that Biden’s probe is “not scientific... it’s political...It’s not something that you can really reasonably launch a major audit of.” The WHO investigation team to Wuhan said it is “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus was leaked from a Chinese lab. U.S. officials accused the trip of “lack of transparency and access”, citing a lot of circumstantial evidence.世界卫生组织赴武汉国际专家组成员彼得·达扎克于5月27日表示，拜登发起的调查“并非出于科学目的，而是出于政治目的。因为根本无法开展合理的查验”。世卫组织赴武汉国际专家组已宣布，新冠肺炎病毒从中国实验室泄露出去是“极不可能”的。当然，美国官员指责国际专家组的调查“缺乏透明度，受到阻挠”，可这些指责所列举的大多是间接证据。But many international research teams including one supported by America’s National Institute of Science, also used sophisticated bioinformatic tools to compare genomic data from several coronaviruses, including the one that causes COVID-19, concluded that “the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 almost certainly originated in nature” just like Eloba, Zika or HIV.许多国际科学研究小组，包括一个由美国国家科学院支持的研究小组，使用尖端生物信息学工具来比较几种冠状病毒的基因组数据，其中包括新冠肺炎病毒，得出的结论是“引起新冠肺炎的冠状病毒几乎可以确定是源于自然界”，就像埃博拉、寨卡和艾滋病毒。Now, the U.S. intelligence community has 90 days to present their findings to President Biden. Truth be told. It is the most formidable intelligence network anywhere in the world. But if history has taught us anything, that is, it can also make mistakes.美国情报机构要在90天内向拜登总统提交调查结果。说实话，美国情报机构拥有全世界最令人生畏的强大情报网络，但如果历史教给我们任何事情的话，那就是，美国情报系统也会犯错误。During the Bay of Pig incident in the 1960s, the CIA failed to provide President John F. Kennedy the assessment that a covert military operation on Cuba could actually fail without overt U.S. military support, clouding the judgment of Kennedy and contributing to the failed attack.在20世纪60年代的“猪湾事件”中，美国中央情报局没有向约翰·肯尼迪总统提供准确的情报，即在没有美国公开军事支持的情况下，针对古巴的秘密军事行动可能会遭遇失败。这影响了肯尼迪总统的判断，也造成了整个行动的失败。Before the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s, the U.S. intelligence community didn’t warn President Jimmy Carter because it assumed that “the specter of a costly quagmire” would deter the Soviets from doing so.在20世纪70年代苏联入兵阿富汗之前，美国情报机构没能提醒吉米·卡特总统苏联对阿富汗的干预。他们认为苏联会因担心陷入“代价高昂的泥潭”而放弃进入阿富汗。And we are not even talking about the “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq in 2003, an intelligence failure that President George W. Bush called his “biggest regret.” 就更别提2003年伊拉克被指拥有“大规模杀伤性武器”了，乔治·沃克·布什总统称这次情报失误是他任期内“最大的遗憾”。So back to Biden’s COVID-tracing mission, it is important to find the virus’ “truest” origin. But if the mission is motivated primarily by politics, perhaps it could wait. After all, there are more urgent things to do, like boosting production and efficacy of vaccines, and ensuring a fairer distribution. Because as we speak, ten of the world’s richer countries now possess some 75 percent of global vaccines and tens of millions of lives are on the line in India, in Nepal, in Brazil, in Mexico and elsewhere battling this virus.回头来看拜登总统的新冠肺炎病毒溯源行动，找到病毒“最真实”的来源的确很重要，但如果这项行动是出于政治目的，那或许它可以先等一等。毕竟还有更要紧的事要做，比如提高疫苗产能和医效，确保更公平的疫苗分配。目前，世界上约10个相对富有的国家集中拥有全球约75%的疫苗，而印度、尼泊尔、巴西、墨西哥等地数千万人的生命岌岌可危，因为他们在艰难地抗击着病毒和疫情。