The most enjoyable part of writing my latest book may have been profiling some of the brilliant people behind the innovations that will help prevent pandemics. Dr. Katalin Karikó, for instance, is the scientist whose research laid the groundwork for mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 and paved the way for developing future vaccines faster than ever. I also wrote about the scientists behind the Seattle Flu Study and SCAN, an ingenious program that helped identify the first cases of community transmission of COVID in the United States, and that I hope will serve as a model for future disease surveillance work in other regions.撰写新书的过程中最令我愉悦的事，可能就是向读者呈现一些为大流行病防范创新作出贡献的杰出人物。例如，科学家卡塔琳·考里科博士，她的研究为mRNA新冠病毒疫苗的诞生奠定了基础，也为以前所未有的速度迅速地开发未来疫苗铺平了道路。此外，我还在书中介绍了西雅图流感研究平台和西雅图冠状病毒评估网络（SCAN）项目的科学家们。创新性的SCAN项目协助识别了在美国社区传播的第一个新冠病例，我希望该项目能成为其他地区未来疾病监测工作的范本。
I recently got to meet with 33 scientists who you may be reading about in future books about how COVID became the last pandemic. They’re graduate students who are working in fields related to pandemic prevention, and the occasion was my third Gates Notes Deep Dive, a series that brings together diverse groups of people from around the world to explore one topic in depth. Previous deep dives have focused on education and on malaria; the conversation this time was centered on how to make sure that disease outbreaks don’t go global.最近，我有机会与33位科学家会面。你们可能会在未来一些讲述新冠肺炎如何成为最后一次大流行病的书中看到他们。他们是在大流行病防范相关领域工作的研究生，这个机会是“盖茨笔记深度研讨”系列对话的第三期，这个活动汇集了来自世界各地不同群体的人，大家共同深入探讨一个主题。此前的“深度研讨”集中在教育和疟疾问题上；这次对话则聚焦于如何确保疾病暴发不会蔓延到全球这一主题。
Before we met, I listened as three experts spoke to the students. Dr. Sofonias Tessema, who runs the Africa Pathogen Genomics Institute, talked about advances in disease detection and monitoring. Then Dr. Padmini Srikantiah, who leads the Gates Foundation’s work on a deadly respiratory virus known as RSV, explored what went well and what didn’t with COVID vaccines and how the world can do better next time. Finally, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who leads the Skoll Foundation’s pandemic prevention work, spoke about what it will take to build and sustain a global pandemic prevention system.在我们见面之前，我听了三位专家为这些研究生所做的演讲。非洲疾控中心病原体基因组学研究所的索福尼亚斯·泰瑟玛博士谈到了疾病检测和监测方面的进展。随后，领导盖茨基金会一种致命呼吸道病毒RSV（译者注：呼吸道合胞病毒）研究的帕德米尼·斯里坎蒂亚博士探讨了新冠疫苗研发进展顺利与不顺利的部分，以及下次如何能做得更好。最后，领导斯科尔基金会大流行病预防工作的南希·梅松尼尔博士谈到了建立和维持全球大流行病防范系统所需的条件。
Then it was my turn to meet with the students. I loved hearing their questions and talking with them about the next wave of innovations—and the role they can play in getting those innovations to everyone who needs them.接着，轮到我与学生们见面了。我喜欢听他们提出的问题，并与他们讨论下一波创新潮——以及在让这些创新惠及需要它们的每一个人的过程中他们所能发挥的作用。
One student asked about the idea of the GERM team that I propose in the book, and how GERM would work differently in high-income and low-income countries. In high-income countries, the team would mostly be working with well-funded public health institutions that have a lot of expertise. At the other end of the income scale, GERM might need to work with partners like Médecins Sans Frontières and the countries themselves to develop plans that don't rely on a lot of government capacity.一位学生问及我在书中提出的组建全球流行病应对和动员（GERM）团队的构想，以及GERM在高收入和低收入国家工作方式的不同之处。在高收入国家，该团队将主要与资金充足、拥有大量专业知识的公共卫生机构合作。而在低收入国家，GERM可能需要与无国界医生组织这样的合作伙伴和国家自身合作，制定不大量依赖政府能力的计划。
Another student cut to the chase and asked: When can the world be ready to prevent pandemics? I think it will take a decade or so. Some parts of the pandemic-prevention system, such as the GERM team, can be put in place sooner than that, and I hope that some innovations such as vaccines that are easier to deliver will be ready sooner too. But other key tools will take longer to develop and test. And we know from experience that it takes years to put together the kind of political and data-sharing agreements that will be necessary. So I think ten years is a challenging but reachable goal.另一位学生开门见山地问道：世界什么时候能做好预防大流行病的准备？我认为这将需要十年左右的时间。大流行病预防系统的某些部分，比如GERM团队，可以在此时间节点之前投入工作，同时，我也希望一些创造发明，比如更容易交付的疫苗，也能更快地准备就绪。不过，其他关键工具的开发和测试将需要更长时间。而且我们从过往经验中得知，达成必要的政治和数据共享协议需要数年时间。因此，我认为十年是一个具有挑战性但可以实现的目标。
I told the students that one area where the younger generations can make a big difference is in fighting misinformation. I’ve seen misinformation on a smaller scale for years, especially through work on polio eradication, but the problem was far worse during COVID than I ever imagined. We need people who grew up with the latest social-media tools to be working on questions like: Why didn’t the truth get the same visibility as the lies? How do we do a better job getting the counter-narrative out? I was happy to hear that one of the students had just submitted his thesis on those very questions.我告诉学生们，年轻一代可以大有作为的一个领域是打击错误信息。多年来，我看到小规模错误信息不断涌现，特别是在根除脊髓灰质炎的工作中，但在新冠疫情期间，这个问题比我想象的要严重得多。我们需要那些伴着最新社交媒体工具长大的人们思考这样的问题：为什么真相没有得到谎言那样高的曝光率？我们怎样才能更好地避免反叙事（译者注：反叙事是一种颠覆时间、拆解历史的叙事方式，通过将“真实历史”与“虚构故事”相融合去表达特定主张）？我很高兴听到其中一位学生刚刚提交了一篇讨论这些问题的论文。
I was also happy to hear from a student who’s working on universal vaccines—ones that would protect you from every possible strain of influenza, for example. These would be a huge breakthrough, because you wouldn’t have to worry about different strains being able to evade your immune system. Flu pandemics would no longer be a threat.我也很高兴得知一位学生正在研究通用疫苗——这种疫苗可以使你免受各种潜在病毒毒株，比如流感毒株的影响。这将是一项重大突破，因为你不必为能够逃避免疫系统的不同毒株而担心。流感大流行将不再是威胁。
I’m grateful to the three speakers who spoke to the grad students, and to the foundation’s Dr. Alaa Murabit, who moderated the event. And I’m inspired by the students themselves. It’s exciting to know that they—and thousands of other smart people like them—are committed to developing and deploying the innovations that will protect the world from future pandemics.我很感谢为研究生们做演讲的三位发言人，以及主持这次活动的盖茨基金会的阿拉·穆拉比特博士。我也受到这些学生的鼓舞。我很高兴得知他们——以及成千上万像他们一样聪慧的人——正在致力于开发和部署创新技术，以保护世界免受未来大流行病的侵袭。