经济学人224:莱克星顿 埃博拉恐慌者

 　　Lexington

　　莱克星顿

　　The Ebola alarmists

　　埃博拉恐慌者

　　Stoking panic will not help America fight Ebola

　　引发恐慌对美国战胜埃博拉无益

　　IN THE crowded field of Ebola alarmists, Rand Paul ofKentuckystands out. Before he was a Republican senator with presidential ambitions, he was an eye doctor. Apparently¹ the Hippocratic oath does not cover panic-mongering: Dr Paul has popped up on talk-radio shows, alleging² that when Barack Obama or his scientists say that Ebola is rather hard to catch, they are fibbing. Or, as he puts it, they are downplaying the risk that Ebola might spread acrossAmericafor reasons of “political correctness”. Ebola is “incredibly transmissible”, Dr Paul has asserted, talking of doctors falling sick even after they suited up and took “every precaution”.

　　肯塔基的兰德·保罗（Rand Paul）从一群埃博拉恐慌者中挺身而出。他之前是一名眼科医生，如今则是一名有着精选总统雄心的共和党议员。显然，希波克拉底誓言没能抵挡住恐慌的传播。保罗医生出现在了电台谈话节目中，声称奥巴马及其科学家所说的 “埃博拉病毒很难传染”的说法是在撒谎。或者正如他所说，他们可能为了“政治正确性”而淡化埃博拉可能传遍全美的风险。保罗医生在谈到医生即使穿戴好防护服并做了“一切预防措施”后仍然患病时说道，埃博拉有着“难以置信的传染性”。

　　埃博拉恐慌者.jpg

　　No one is denying that Ebola is a huge problem inAfrica, nor that it would be a disaster were it to reach and spread through the slums of say, Mumbai. But rich nations have the resources to contain it if it reaches their shores.Americahas so far seen one case: a Liberian man who died on October 8th. Although a Texan hospital at first missed his symptoms, he was subsequently isolated⁴ and is not yet known to have infected anyone else.

　　没人能够否认埃博拉在非洲是个巨大的难题，也没人否认，如果埃博拉传到贫民区，比如孟买，则必然是场灾难。但是发达国家拥有资源，如果资源能送达非洲海岸，就能够控制事态。美国迄今为止有一例埃博拉病例，是一名来自利比里亚的男性，死于10月8日。尽管德克萨斯医院起初误诊，但他随后被隔离，至今尚不清楚他已经传染给了多少人。

　　Also on October 8th, the federal government announced that passengers from West Africawould be screened for Ebola at five American airports. Many politicians are demanding more drastic measures. Dr Paul is one of several to ask why flights from Ebola-stricken African countries to Americacontinue at all. Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisianasays planes must be grounded “to protect our people”. Senator Ted³ Cruz of Texascontrasts Mr Obama's willingness to let airlines serve West Africa with July's “highly suspicious” decision by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to halt American flights into Israelafter a rocket fell near that country's main airport, just as the government was—Mr Cruz growls—pressing Israelto grant concessions⁵ to Hamas. Many candidates have urged Ebola travel bans. Few mention that most routes from Africa to Americarequire transfers in Europe, making it hard to stop them without closing the Atlantic(see article).

　　同样在10月8日，联邦政府宣布，所有从西非来的乘客将在美国五大机场进行埃博拉病毒的筛查。多名政客要求出台更加严厉的防范措施。有几名人士质疑，为什么从非洲疫区国家来的航班仍在通航，而保罗就是其中之一。路易斯安那州州长博比金达尔（Bobby Jindal）说，飞机必须停飞，以“保护我们民众的安全”。德克萨斯州参议员泰德·科鲁兹（Ted Cruz）将奥巴马让航空公司服务西非的意愿，与美国联邦航空局在以色列一重要机场附近遭火箭袭击后于7月作出“高度警戒”，决定停飞一切以色列航班这件事情进行比较，并怒斥道，这就像是美国政府在向以色列施压，让以色列同意向哈马斯作出让步。诸多总统候选人都敦促政府出台埃博拉疫区的出行禁令。少有人提及多数从非洲到美国的航班需要在欧洲中转，这使得想要在不封锁大西洋航线的情况下而阻止来自非洲的民众是很难的事。

　　Dr Paul is, to date, alone in suggesting that—in deploying⁶ troops toAfricato build field hospitals—Mr Obama may be sending them to a horror-movie death. We all know how diarrhoea spreads on cruise ships, he has said: “Can you imagine if a whole shipful of our soldiers catch Ebola?”

　　保罗是迄今为止唯一提出“被奥巴马部署到非洲建立临时医院的军队，可能是被送去面临恐怖电影中的死亡桥段”的人。保罗说，我们都知道腹泻是如何在游轮上进行传播，“你能想象一船人那么多的士兵被染上埃博拉的情况吗？”

　　Government doctors are working to calm the public, notably⁷ Tom Frieden, head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anthony Fauci, boss of the infectious diseases arm of the National Institutes of Health. The pair have spent hours on TV, enduring hosts shouting about “hot zones”, or enquiring⁸ whether terrorists might use Ebola. (It would be an “inefficient” bio-weapon, Dr Fauci mildly replied, adding that the virus's evolution in nature is far scarier.) Repeatedly the pair have explained why quarantiningWest Africawould be unwise. It would weaken governments, hobble aid, trap Americans and spur travellers to move in roundabout ways that make them harder to track.

　　政府部门的医生正在安抚群众，特别是疾控中心的领导汤姆·弗里登（Tom Frieden），和美国国立卫生研究院下属传染病机构的领导安东尼·福西（Anthony Fauci）。他们在电视上花了好几个小时的时间忍受主持人对“敏感地区”以及埃博拉是否会被恐怖分子利用等的询问。（福西医生淡淡的回答说，埃博拉是“低效”的生物武器，并补充道，病毒在自然界中的进化远比这个可怕。）他俩反复的解释为什么隔离西非是不明智的。因为这会削弱政府的控制、阻碍援助的进行、诱骗美国民众并刺激出行者用迂回的方式出行从而使得追踪更加的困难。

　　To be fair, Democrats⁹ have also played virus-politics. The first Ebola attack ad ran in August, as Senator Mark Pryor ofArkansasaccused his Republican opponent, Tom Cotton, of voting against a pandemic-prevention bill (neglecting to mention that Mr Cotton later voted for a different version of the same bill). Democrats have linked the Ebola crisis to the sequester¹⁰, across-the-board federal spending cuts which reduced public-health funds and overseas aid. True, Congress has spent years messing up science funding, but that is not why Ebola exploded inAfrica. Indeed,Americahas poured billions of dollars into pandemic preparedness since the 2005 Asian outbreak of H5N1 avian flu. The country is “dramatically better-prepared than it was”, says Michael Leavitt, George W. Bush's health secretary during the bird flu scare.

　　公平地说，民主党人也玩起了“病毒政治”。第一则有关埃博拉的攻击性广告出现于8月，阿肯色州参议员马克·普莱尔（Mark Pryor） 指责其共和党的对手汤姆·科顿（Tom Cotton） 投票反对流行病预防法案（但并没有提及科顿之后投票赞成该法案的另一个版本）。民主党人把埃博拉危机与隔离、全面削减联邦开支联系在一起，而联邦开支的削减将导致公共医疗基金和海外援助的相应缩减。说真的，国会花了数年时间把科研经费搞得一团糟，但这并不是埃博拉在非洲爆发的原因。事实上，自从2005年亚洲爆发H5N1型禽流感以来，美国已经在流行病预防上倾注了数十亿美元。小布什时期的卫生部部长迈克尔·莱维特（Michael Leavitt）在禽流感恐慌中时曾说道，美国“比以往任何时候都准备得更加充分”。

　　A new poll by the Pew Research Centre shows how tribalism skews trust. With Mr Obama in the White House, Republicans are much more sceptical than Democrats about the government's ability to prevent a big Ebola outbreak, Pew found. In contrast, in 2005 Republicans were far more confident than Democrats that Mr Bush could control bird flu.

　　皮尤研究中心一项新的民意调查显示了部落意识是如何扭曲信任的。皮尤发现，由于奥巴马在白宫任职，所以共和党人比民主党人更加怀疑政府预防埃博拉大爆发的能力。相比之下，在2005年，共和党人在小布什能否够控制禽流感这一问题上则远比民主党人要自信。

　　Yet distrust has also mutated like a virus in recent years.America's debate on Ebola is, or should be, an argument about the best use of the country's formidable resources. Namely, is it safer to pursue hermetic isolation¹¹ from the world; or (counter-intuitively) is it less risky¹² forAmericato fight Ebola with a strategy of controlled openness, leading a global fight to beat the virus at its source, while trusting experts to prevent an American outbreak with painstaking¹³ health-checks at airports and hospitals?

　　然而，近年来，不信任也像病毒一样发生了突变。美国对埃博拉的争论是，或者说应该是一场关于如何最好的利用国家强大资源的争论。也就是说，是追求与世界的完全隔离更加安全？还是说（与我们的直觉相反）运用控制下的开放战略，利用它的资源来领导全球的埃博拉战争，并信任专家能够通过在机场和医院辛苦的健康检查来阻止埃博拉在美国爆发的这种方式，对美国而言风险更小？

　　That sort of argument will always expose philosophical¹⁴ differences. Reasonable people will often disagree: some instinctively¹⁵ put their faith in security, others in openness. It is good to ask hard questions about official competence—agents of state authority often make mistakes. And there is nothing new about a crisis stoking partisan¹⁶ flames: in 2005 the far left accused Mr Bush of failing to respond properly to Hurricane Katrina because he supposedly did not care about black residents ofNew Orleans.

　　这种争论总会暴露出不同观点间的哲学差异。明智的人常常不会同意一些人把他们自己的信仰放入安全地带，却让其他人的信仰处于危险之中。对政府能力提出刁钻问题是件好事。因为政府作为国家权威代理者经常犯错。加剧党派对峙火焰的危机并不是什么新鲜事，2005年，极左派指责布什没能对卡特里娜飓风做出恰当的回应是或是因为他不关心新奥尔良的黑人居民。

　　Conspiracy¹⁷ theories go viral

　　阴谋论不胫而走

　　But the arrival of a nasty virus fromAfricahas revealed something else. Ambitious politicians are no longer merely attacking the other party, or the president. The starting point for Ebola alarmists is an assumption that behind policy disagreements, conspiracies¹⁸ lurk¹⁹, with technocrats²⁰ in on the plot. Dr Paul appears to believe that officials are knowingly lying when they downplay the risk of a pandemic. Mr Cruz breezily suggests that the FAA helped to bullyIsrael.Louisiana's governor complains that the government, in arguing that flight bans do more harm than good, wants Americans to heed²¹ what he sniffily calls “the experts”.

　　但这种源自非洲让人厌烦的病毒的到来也反映出一些其他的东西。有野心的政客不再只是攻击另一党派或是总统。埃博拉恐慌者的出发点是对背后政治差异、技术官僚密谋阴谋的假设。保罗似乎认为，官员在淡化疫情风险时故意撒谎。科鲁兹则轻描淡写的建议美国联邦航空局（FAA）去恐吓以色列。路易斯安那州州长抱怨认为飞行禁令弊大于利的政府，想让美国民众去听从那些被他呲之以鼻称为“砖家”的人的说法。

　　Some leaders are more responsible. The Republican governor ofTexas, Rick Perry, has tried to keep people calm. Few countries are better equipped thanAmericato keep the public safe, he has assured Texans. He is right. It should not need saying.

　　一些领导则更有责任感。德克萨斯州的共和党州长里科·佩里（Rick Perry）试图安抚民众。他向德克萨斯的民众保证，没有哪个国家拥有像美国这么好的、能够保障公共安全的设备。他是对的。这根本不必说出来。人尽皆知。

1 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

2 alleging   

断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• His reputation was blemished by a newspaper article alleging he'd evaded his taxes. 由于报上一篇文章声称他曾逃税，他的名誉受到损害。
• This our Peeress declined as unnecessary, alleging that her cousin Thornhill's recommendation would be sufficient. 那位贵人不肯，还说不必，只要有她老表唐希尔保荐就够了。

3 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

4 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

5 concessions   

n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权

参考例句：

• The firm will be forced to make concessions if it wants to avoid a strike. 要想避免罢工，公司将不得不作出一些让步。
• The concessions did little to placate the students. 让步根本未能平息学生的愤怒。

6 deploying   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的现在分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Provides support for developing and deploying distributed, component-based applications. 为开发和部署基于组件的分布式应用程序提供支持。
• Advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand are all available when deploying your application. 在部署应用程序时提供公布、发布、修复和即需即装功能。

7 notably   

adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地

参考例句：

• Many students were absent,notably the monitor.许多学生缺席，特别是连班长也没来。
• A notably short,silver-haired man,he plays basketball with his staff several times a week.他个子明显较为矮小，一头银发，每周都会和他的员工一起打几次篮球。

8 enquiring   

a.爱打听的，显得好奇的

参考例句：

• a child with an enquiring mind 有好奇心的孩子
• Paul darted at her sharp enquiring glances. 她的目光敏锐好奇，保罗飞快地朝她瞥了一眼。

9 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 sequester   

vt.使退隐，使隔绝

参考例句：

• Everything he owned was sequestered.他的所有财产都被扣押了。
• This jury is expected to be sequestered for at least two months.预计这个陪审团将至少被隔离两个月。

11 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

12 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

13 painstaking   

adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的

参考例句：

• She is not very clever but she is painstaking.她并不很聪明，但肯下苦功夫。
• Through years of our painstaking efforts,we have at last achieved what we have today.大家经过多少年的努力，才取得今天的成绩。

14 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

15 instinctively   

adv.本能地

参考例句：

• As he leaned towards her she instinctively recoiled. 他向她靠近，她本能地往后缩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He knew instinctively where he would find her. 他本能地知道在哪儿能找到她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 partisan   

adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒

参考例句：

• In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中，他们忘掉一切党派之争。
• The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。

17 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

18 conspiracies   

n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was still alive and hatching his conspiracies. 他还活着，策划着阴谋诡计。 来自辞典例句
• It appeared that they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very moment of their release. 看上去他们刚给释放，立刻开始新一轮的阴谋活动。 来自英汉文学

19 lurk   

n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏

参考例句：

• Dangers lurk in the path of wilderness.在这条荒野的小路上隐伏着危险。
• He thought he saw someone lurking above the chamber during the address.他觉得自己看见有人在演讲时潜藏在会议厅顶上。

20 technocrats   

n.技术专家，专家政治论者( technocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Few business barons remained. They were replaced by "technocrats," who became the heads of corporations. 企业巨头所剩无几，大多已被“技术专家”所代替，这些人成了公司的领导。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• However, bankers called the technocrats' bluff and proceeded to lend with gusto. 但是，银行家们称技术专家官员不过在虚张声势，并且还会乐观的继续借贷业务。 来自互联网

21 heed   

v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心

参考例句：

• You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
• For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。