CGTN时评丨实验室泄漏论：无视生命的政治把戏
Nearly two years on from the emergence of COVID-19, the debate over its origins rages on with no definitive answers.
新冠疫情暴发至今已近两年。关于病毒源头的争论仍纠缠不已，至今仍无法定论。
Did it jump from animals to humans, was it caused by a lab leak or is there another explanation?
病毒到底是由动物传播给人类的,还是从实验室泄漏的，或是另有源头?
Let's weigh the evidence.
我们来看一下证据。
The lab leak hypothesis contains some very serious allegations and several strands.
实验室泄漏论中包含一些非常严重的指控，也有若干版本。
First, there is the claim that China is not being transparent and must be hiding something.
首先，有人称中国遮遮掩掩，必有隐瞒。
And if China is hiding something, so the logic goes, there must have been a lab leak.
而如果中国只要有所隐瞒，那就意味着病毒肯定是从实验室里泄漏的。
But is China hiding things? Not according to the international team of scientists sent to Wuhan to investigate the origins of COVID-19.
但中国真的有所隐瞒吗？曾赴武汉调查新冠肺炎疫情源头的国际专家组给出的答案是否定的。
The team says it was given access to everywhere it wanted to go. It went to the main market where the virus spread from. It met with the doctors that treated the first patients, and the staff of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It even got to look at raw data such as the early case database.
专家组表示，他们获准进入了所有希望进入的场所，包括最早出现疫情的市场。专家们还和治疗首批病例的医生和武汉病毒研究所的工作人员进行了会面，甚至查阅了早期病例信息等原始数据。
"We went on tours around the labs, not just one, but many labs in Wuhan. And we looked for the sorts of things you'd look for."
“我们到访了实验室，不仅一间实验室，是武汉很多实验室。我们寻找了大家希望寻找的那些东西，”世卫专家组成员彼得·达扎克称。
No matter how much data the team collected, it seems critics will never be satisfied.
无论专家组收集的数据多么详尽，批评者似乎永远都不满意。
Second, there are allegations that there's a "smoking gun" – biological proof that the virus that causes COVID-19 was genetically engineered.
第二，有人称有确凿的生物学证据表明，新冠病毒是基因工程的产物。
This allegation stems from a widely read article in which Nobel laureate David Baltimore says the virus' furin cleavage site appears to be genetically engineered.
这一说法源自一篇被广泛传阅的诺奖得主大卫·巴尔的摩(David Baltimore)
撰写的文章。文章称病毒的弗林蛋白酶裂解位点似乎是通过基因工程制造的。
But Professor Baltimore has backed down from this claim, and other biologists showed he was dead wrong. The intelligence review ordered by U.S. President Joe Biden found no evidence the virus was created in a lab or engineered by humans.
但巴尔的摩教授之后改口收回了这一说法。其他生物学家也证实该说法大错特错。美国总统乔·拜登下令进行的情报评估也未发现任何支持病毒系实验室或人为制造的证据。
Third, there is the circumstantial argument, based on a seemingly uncanny coincidence.
第三，还有人提出了推测性的说法，依据是一个看似离奇的巧合。
A coronavirus outbreak took place in a city that houses a lab that studies the coronavirus. What are the odds?
新冠肺炎疫情暴发的城市里正好有一个研究冠状病毒的实验室,这说明了什么不是显而易见的吗？
Well, consider this. Research labs tend to be in major cities and study viruses found in their region.
事实上，研究实验室一般都会设在主要城市中，研究的是在本地区发现的病毒。
South China is the region where the original SARS outbreak occurred – caused by a coronavirus.
中国南方是非典疫情的最初暴发地。引起非典的是一种冠状病毒。
Wuhan is one of the area's biggest transportation and commercial hubs. Its markets receive goods and agricultural products from all over the country and the world.
武汉是中国南方最大的交通和商业枢纽之一，市内的众多市场接收来自全国乃至世界各地的商品和农产品。
If COVID-19 jumped from animals to humans as SARS did, the odds are that an outbreak would be first detected in a place like Wuhan's wildlife markets.
如果新冠病毒和非典一样，是由动物传播给人类的，那么疫情的最初暴发地可能是类似于武汉野生动物市场的场所。
Fourth, there is the suggestion that because the wildlife market was close to the Wuhan Institute of Virology or another virus lab, the virus could have leaked from the lab to the market.
第四，有人称，因为野生动物市场距离武汉病毒研究所或者另外一家病毒实验室不远，所以病毒可能是从实验室泄漏到市场中的。
In fact, the earliest cases of the novel coronavirus were found in two separate wildlife markets.
最早的新冠肺炎病例其实是在两个野生动物市场发现的。
Why would the virus leak from a lab to two different wildlife markets?
病毒为什么会由一个实验室泄漏到两个野生动物市场中？
Wouldn't it be just as likely to go from the lab to two different subway stations, or two different movie theaters?
按照这种说法，病毒岂不是也可能从实验室里泄漏到两个地铁站或者两家电影院中？
Finally, there is the claim that three workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology "sought hospital care" in November 2019.
最后，还有说法称，武汉病毒研究所的三名员工曾在2019年11月就医。
This emerged from an unsourced report in the Wall Street Journal. No proof of this allegation has ever been presented. Even though China made a request, the Journal has not provided the names of the alleged three workers. And all of the researchers and workers at the institute tested negative for the coronavirus.
此说法出自一篇《华尔街日报》的报道，报道中既未注明该说法的出处，也未给出任何证据。虽然中国提出了要求，该报并未提供这三名员工的姓名。而武汉病毒研究所的全部研究和工作人员的新冠病毒检测结果均呈阴性。
Favoring the jump from animals to humans – we have scholarly articles in highly respected journals such as Cell, Nature, Science, Nature Medicine, and The Lancet.
关于病毒动物传人一说，有多篇支持该观点的学术文章已经在权威期刊上发表，例如《细胞》、《自然》、《科学》、《自然-医学》和《柳叶刀》。
We have a report by a team of international scientists appointed by the World Health Organization.
同样支持该说法的还有世卫组织专家组的报告。
On the other hand, proponents of a lab leak origin have the words of some politicians, the inconclusive findings of a few spy agencies… and no concrete scientific evidence whatsoever. Nothing.
相比之下，实验室泄漏一说则来自某些政客的言论和几个间谍机构漏洞百出的调查结果，毫无切实的科学证据支撑。
Trump and his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo said there was evidence to back the lab leak. But they never offered any.
特朗普及其前国务卿迈克·蓬佩奥称有证据支持实验室泄漏一说，但从未拿出此类证据。
So is it difficult to figure out where investigators should search for COVID-19's origins?
那么，确定病毒溯源的调查方向难吗？
President Biden says he can't figure it out – and asked a group of experts to write a report giving him the answer.
拜登总统说他不知道答案，于是要求一个专家组撰写报告告诉他答案。
A group of expert scientists?
由科学家组成的专家组吗？
No – a group of expert spies.
不，由间谍组成的“专家组”。
Why? The answer is politics.
原因是什么？是政治。
Scientists have already answered this question. And it hasn't satisfied Biden.
科学家们其实已经回答了这个问题，但拜登对结论不满意。
Spy agencies are more likely to find ways to give the answer the president wants to hear.
间谍机构更有可能想方设法找出总统想要的答案。
Remember the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
还记得伊拉克的大规模杀伤性武器吗？
No matter how many inspections the UN conducted, the U.S. was never satisfied.
不论联合国进行多少次勘察，结论始终不合美国之意。
In the end, weapons of mass destruction were never found, because there were none.
美国最终未能在伊拉克找到大规模杀伤性武器，因为根本就没有。
The same will be true of evidence of a lab leak.
实验室泄露论的“证据”不过是重蹈覆辙。
From the beginning of the pandemic to this day, the U.S. has lied to the public, and put politics ahead of public health.
自疫情暴发至今，美国一直在向公众撒谎，将政治置于公共卫生之上。
No matter how much data researchers collect, conspiracy theorists will always say China is hiding something else.
不论研究人员收集多少数据，阴谋论者还是会说中国有所隐瞒。
The lab leak hypothesis cannot be disproven by scientists – because it is political in nature.
科学家无法驳倒实验室泄漏论，因为其带有政治属性。
It's time for these disinformation games to stop.
是时候叫停这些散播虚假信息的把戏了。
The pandemic has cost nearly 680,000 American lives, more than the U.S. death toll in the 1918 Spanish flu.
疫情夺走了近68万名美国人的生命，已经超过1918年大流感在美国造成的死亡人数。
Even as the death toll keeps rising, politics continues to get in the way of U.S. solutions.
尽管死亡人数持续上升，政治仍然阻碍着美国的抗疫行动。
The U.S. seems not to care that people around the world are dying needlessly.
美国似乎并不关心世界各地因疫情而白白逝去的生命。
In the broken U.S. system, politics and personal ambition comes before the health and wellbeing of the people.
在破败的美国国家体系中，政治和个人野心高于人民的健康和福祉。
Blaming China is easier than learning how to stop a global pandemic.
指责中国比研究如何阻断全球疫情更容易。
Some people in the United States hang on to the lab leak hypothesis because it’s good for their careers – but COVID-19 should not be a political issue… it’s a public health issue.
在美国，一些人咬住实验室泄漏论不放，因为这有利于他们的事业发展。但疫情不应当是政治问题……它是公共卫生问题。