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| WASHINGTON — The Energy Department’s conclusion, with “low confidence,” that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic has renewed questions about what sparked the worst public health crisis in a century — and whether the virus at the heart of it was somehow connected to scientific research. | 华盛顿——能源部得出“低置信度”结论，即中国实验室的一次意外泄漏很可能导致了新冠病毒大流行，再次引发人们质疑一个世纪以来最严重的公共卫生危机的起源——以及病毒是否在某种程度上与科学研究有关联。 |
| Scientists and spy agencies have tried assiduously to answer that question, but conclusive evidence is hard to come by. The nation’s intelligence agencies are split, and none of them changed their conclusions after seeing the Energy Department’s findings, officials said. | 科学家和间谍机构一直在孜孜不倦地试图回答这个问题，但很难找到决定性证据。官员们说，美国的情报机构存在分歧，并且它们在看到能源部的调查结果后都没有改变结论。 |
| Scientists who have studied the genetics of the virus, and the patterns by which it spread, say the most likely cause is that the virus jumped from live mammals to humans — a scientific phenomenon known as “zoonotic spillover” — at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, the city in which the first cases of Covid-19 emerged in late 2019. | 研究了该病毒的遗传学及其传播模式的科学家表示，最可能的原因是在中国武汉华南海鲜批发市场，病毒从活体哺乳动物传播到了人类，这是一种被称为“人畜共患病溢出”的科学现象。武汉于2019年底出现了首例新冠病例。 |
| But other scientists say there is evidence, albeit circumstantial, that the virus came from a lab, possibly the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which had deep expertise in researching coronaviruses. Lab accidents do happen; in 2014, after accidents involving bird flu and anthrax, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tightened its biosafety practices. | 但其他科学家表示，尽管只有间接证据，但证据表明该病毒来自实验室，可能是武汉病毒研究所——一座专长于新冠病毒研究的实验室。实验室事故确实会发生，2014年，在禽流感和炭疽病事故发生后，美国疾病控制与预防中心加强了生物安全措施。 |
| The debate is politically fraught. The lab leak theory gained currency among Republicans in the spring of 2020 after President Donald J. Trump, who used inflammatory terms to blame China for the pandemic, latched onto the idea. Many Democrats have not been persuaded by the lab leak hypothesis; some say they believe the explanation of natural causes, and others say there may never be enough intelligence to draw a conclusion. | 这场辩论充满政治色彩。2020年春天，实验室泄漏的说法在共和党人中流行起来，特朗普总统抓住这一说法做不放，此前他曾使用煽动性的措辞将大流行归咎于中国。许多民主党人没有被实验室泄漏假说说服。有些人说他们相信病毒是自然产生的说法，而另一些人则说可能永远没有足够的情报来得出结论。 |
| The Energy Department’s findings have given a boost to House Republicans, who are investigating the pandemic’s origins. But apart from the politics, experts say that understanding what caused a public health crisis that has killed nearly seven million people could help researchers understand how to prevent the next one. | 能源部调查结果鼓舞了正在调查大流行病起源的众议院共和党人。但专家表示，除了政治因素之外，了解造成近700万人死亡的公共卫生危机的原因还可以帮助研究人员了解如何预防下一次危机。 |
| Here’s what we know, and don’t know, about the origins of the coronavirus. | 以下是关于新冠病毒起源的已知和未知信息。 |
| Why is it hard to know for certain how the pandemic started? | 为什么很难确定大流行是如何开始的？ |
| It is often difficult to find the origins of viruses, but China has compounded that problem by making it very difficult to gather evidence. | 病毒溯源通常很难，但中国让收集证据变得非常困难，从而使问题变得更加复杂。 |
| By the time Chinese researchers arrived to collect samples from the Huanan market, the police had shut down and disinfected the market because a number of people linked to it had become sick with what would later be recognized as Covid. No live market animals were left. | 当中国研究人员抵达华南市场采集样本时，警方已经关闭了该市场并对其进行了消杀，因为许多与该市场相关的人患病，后来被确认感染了新冠病毒病。该市场没有活体动物留下来。 |
| Some scientists also believe that China has provided an incomplete picture of early Covid cases. And they worry that a directive to hospitals early in the outbreak to report illnesses specifically linked to the market may have led doctors to overlook other cases with no such ties, creating a biased snapshot of the spread. | 一些科学家还认为，中国提供的早期新冠病例的情况并不完整。在疫情暴发初期，医院接到指示要求特别报告与市场相关的疾病，科学家担心这可能会导致医生忽视了没有此类关联的其他病例，从而对传播情况的认识产生了偏差。 |
| What have scientists done to investigate? | 科学家做了什么调查？ |
| Experts have tried to work around the holes in the data. | 专家们试图解决数据中的空缺。 |
| Scientists have examined cases of patients hospitalized before the call went out for doctors to look for ties to the market. They have also mapped the locations of early Covid cases in Wuhan — including both people who were initially linked to the market and those who were not — and found what they say are signs that the virus started spreading at the market. | 科学家们检查了在医生接到报告与市场相关病例指示之前的住院患者的病例。他们还绘制了武汉早期新冠病例的位置图，包括最初与市场有关联的人和没有关联的人，他们发现了病毒开始在市场传播的迹象。 |
| Some of those same scientists have studied maps of where investigators found the virus in the Huanan market, including walls, floors and other surfaces, and found that those samples clustered in an area of the market where live animals were sold. | 其中一些科学家研究了调查人员在华南市场发现病毒的位置的地图，包括墙壁、地板和其他表面，并发现这些样本集中在市场上出售活体动物的区域。 |
| And separate genetic analyses from the very early stages of the pandemic, some scientists have said, suggest that the virus spilled over into people working or shopping at the market on two separate occasions. | 一些科学家表示，在大流行非常早期进行的另一项基因分析表明，该病毒分别两次蔓延到在市场工作或购物的人身上。 |
| Other scientists have disputed that studies like those can indicate a market origin with much confidence. They have said, for example, that the evidence for two separate spillovers at the market could also be evidence of the virus evolving as it spread from person to person. | 其他科学家质疑这样的研究能否可靠地表明病毒来自市场。例如，他们表示，市场中发现两起互无关联的溢出的证据，也可能证明病毒在人与人之间传播的过程中发生演化。 |
| Some have also argued that for all the attention being paid to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, not enough has been paid to a different research site in the city, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That center is much closer to the Huanan market. | 一些科学家表示，由于人们将所有的关注放在武汉病毒研究所上，对该市另一个研究机构武汉疾病预防控制中心的关注不够。该中心距离华南市场更近。 |
| Why do some people suspect a laboratory leak? | 为什么有些人怀疑实验室泄漏？ |
| In October, Republicans on the Senate health committee published an analysis of the origins of the pandemic that argued it was “most likely the result of a research-related incident,” while acknowledging that the conclusion was “not intended to be dispositive.” | 10月，参议院卫生委员会的共和党人发表了一份对大流行起源的分析，认为“很可能是与研究相关的意外事件的结果”，同时承认该结论“并非旨在成为决定性结论”。 |
| The report spotlighted what its authors described as holes in the natural origins theory, as well as “persistent biosafety problems” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The report, though, relied largely on existing public evidence, rather than new or classified information, and did not produce evidence to show that the Wuhan institute stored any virus in its collections that could have become the virus causing Covid-19, with or without scientific tinkering. | 该报告强调了其作者所说的自然起源理论中的漏洞，以及武汉病毒研究所“持续存在的生物安全问题”。不过，该报告在很大程度上依赖于现有的公开证据，而不是新信息或机密信息，并且没有提供证据表明，武汉研究所在其样本库中存放的某种病毒日后可能成为导致新冠疫情的病毒，无论有没有进行科学修改。 |
| The lab leak hypothesis is bolstered, the report said, by the absence of any published evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was circulating in animals before the pandemic. Samples of virus collected on refrigerators, countertops and other surfaces at the Huanan market were genetically similar to human samples, suggesting the virus was shed by humans, not animals, it said. | 报告称，由于没有任何公开证据表明导致新冠的病毒SARS-CoV-2在大流行之前在动物中传播，这支持了实验室泄漏假说。报告称，在华南市场的冰箱、台面和其他表面收集的病毒样本与人类样本在基因上相似，这表明该病毒是由人类而非动物传播的。 |
| But some experts said the inability to find an infected animal did not prove anything, because China shut down the market and killed all of its animals before they could be tested. | 但一些专家表示，找不到受感染的动物并不能证明什么，因为中国关闭了市场并杀死了所有的动物，没有来得及对它们进行检测。 |
| In 2018, before the pandemic, the Wuhan institute and its partners — including EcoHealth Alliance, a research group whose work has been financed by the United States — sought Defense Department funding to collect and experiment on coronaviruses with novel traits that would make them highly transmissible in humans. | 2018年，在大流行之前，武汉研究所及其合作伙伴——包括由美国资助的研究小组“生态健康联盟”——寻求国防部的资助，以收集和实验具有新特征的新冠病毒，这些特征将使它们在人类之间具有高度传播性。 |
| The group project was never funded. But the report pointed to that proposal, noting that the virus that causes Covid-19 has traits similar to what the researchers were looking for. That has persuaded some scientists that a lab leak was possible. The Senate Republican report surmised that the virus may have escaped — perhaps by infecting a researcher who then carried it outside the lab. | 该小组项目从未获得经费。但报告指向该提议，并指出导致新冠的病毒与研究人员正在研究的病毒具有相似的特征。这让一些科学家相信实验室泄漏是可能的。参议院共和党人的报告推测有可能发生了病毒逃逸——可能一名感染了病毒的研究人员将其带出了实验室。 |
| The National Institutes of Health paid for some of EcoHealth Alliance’s work in Wuhan, but N.I.H. officials have repeatedly said the viruses being studied with American taxpayer dollars bore no genetic resemblance to the one that causes Covid-19. But Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, the N.I.H.’s acting director, acknowledged during a recent congressional hearing that he did not know what other work the Wuhan institute was doing. | 美国国家卫生院为生态健康联盟在武汉的部分工作支付了一部分费用，但卫生院官员们一再表示，用美国纳税人的钱研究的病毒与导致新冠的病毒在基因上没有相似之处。但卫生院代理主任劳伦斯·A·塔巴克在最近的一次国会听证会上承认，他对武汉研究所的其他工作不知情。 |
| |27| What does the American intelligence community say? | 美国情报界怎么说？ |
| In May 2021, several months after he took office, President Biden ordered the nation’s intelligence agencies to conduct a 90-day inquiry into the cause of the pandemic. The findings of that review were released in August 2021 and reaffirmed what the agencies had previously said: Both the natural origins theory and the lab leak theory were plausible. | 2021年5月，上任几个月后的拜登总统命令国家情报机构对大流行的原因进行为期90天的调查。该审查的结果于2021年8月发布，并重申了这些机构之前所说的话：自然起源理论和实验室泄漏理论都有可能。 |
| In a statement at the time, Mr. Biden called on China to be more transparent about what had led to the emergence of the virus there in late 2019. | 在当时的一份声明中，拜登呼吁中国对病毒在2019年底出现在该国的原因提高透明度。 |
| The Energy Department’s new conclusion is based on intelligence that is not publicly available, so it is difficult to know what accounted for the change. But the department’s use of the phrase “low confidence” indicates that its level of certainty is not high. The F.B.I., however, has concluded with “moderate confidence” that the virus emerged accidentally from a lab. | 能源部的新结论是基于未公开的情报得出的，因此很难知道是什么导致了这一变化。但该部门使用“低置信度”一词表明其确定性水平不高。然而，FBI以“中等置信度”得出结论称该病毒是从实验室意外出现的。 |
| Four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded, with low confidence, that the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission. The C.I.A., the nation’s pre-eminent spy agency, has not taken a position and remains undecided. | 其他四个情报机构和国家情报委员会得出的结论是，该病毒很可能是通过自然传播出现的，但置信度低。美国最显要的间谍机构CIA尚未表明立场，且没有得出结论。 |
| What is Congress doing to address the question? | 针对这一问题，国会在做什么？ |
| House Republicans have been trying to investigate the origins of the pandemic and gather evidence that might shed light on what caused it — including whether China concealed facts about the initial outbreak and what research American tax dollars may have financed in Wuhan. | 众议院共和党人一直在努力调查大流行的起源，并收集可能揭示大流行原因的证据——包括中国是否隐瞒了与最初暴发有关的事实，以及美国纳税人的钱可能被用于资助了武汉的哪些研究。 |
| Now that Republicans are in charge of the House, that investigative work is escalating in several committees, including the Intelligence Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The subcommittee will hold its first hearing on the origins question on March 8, a spokeswoman said. | 现在共和党人掌管了众议院，调查工作在几个委员会中不断升级，包括情报委员会、能源和商业委员会以及新冠病毒大流行特别小组委员会。一位发言人表示，该小组委员会将于3月8日就溯源问题举行首次听证会。 |
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