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| On Jan. 12, 2020, Chinese investigators combing a market for clues about the outbreak of a mysterious new illness in the city of Wuhan swabbed a cart. It was the kind typically used for transporting animal cages, and it came back positive for the coronavirus. | 2020年1月12日，中国调查人员在武汉市一个市场上寻找有关一种神秘新疾病暴发的线索，他们提取了一辆手推车的拭子。这种手推车通常用于运输动物笼子，这份取样的冠状病毒检测结果呈阳性。 |
| Three years later, a team of international experts has sifted through the genetic contents of that swab, which were quietly uploaded to an international database and made public only this year. In a report released on Monday night, the scientists described in detail for the first time evidence from the swab that they say strengthens the case that illegally traded wild animals ignited the coronavirus pandemic. | 三年后，一个国际专家团队筛查了该拭子的基因内容，相关内容此前被悄悄上传到一个国际数据库，直到今年才公之于众。在周一晚上发布的一份报告中，科学家们首次详细描述了来自拭子的证据，他们说，这些证据加强了非法交易野生动物引发冠状病毒大流行的说法。 |
| Chinese researchers who had originally uploaded the raw data had it removed from the database after they were contacted by the international team. Now administrators of the database itself have cut off access to the international scientists for what they said were rules violations, raising questions about the database’s own role in the tug of war over access to data that could shed light on the origins of a virus that has killed seven million people. | 在国际团队与他们联系后，最初上传原始数据的中国研究人员将数据从数据库中删除。现在，该数据库的管理人员以违反规则为由，取消了国际科学家的访问权限，这令人对该数据库在获取数据的拉锯战中所扮演的角色产生怀疑，而这些数据可能有助于揭示一种导致700万人死亡的病毒的起源。 |
| Along with genetic signatures of the coronavirus, the swab from the cart contained more than 4,500 lengthy fragments of genetic material from raccoon dogs, the report said. It had none from humans. Some Covid-positive swabs taken from other objects and surfaces at the market, the report said, also had more genetic material from animals than from humans. | 报告称，除了冠状病毒的基因特征，来自手推车的拭子还含有4500多个来自貉的遗传物质的长片段。它们全部不是来自人类基因。报告称，从市场上其他物体和表面提取的一些新冠阳性拭子中，来自动物的遗传物质也比来自人类的多。 |
| Finding genetic footprints from animals in the same place as genetic material from the virus does not prove that the animals themselves were infected. But some scientists who reviewed the report said that the dominance of genetic material from animals — and especially raccoon dogs — suggested that species known to be able to spread the coronavirus were indeed carrying infections at the market in late 2019. | 在同一地方发现动物遗传足迹与病毒的遗传物质并不能证明动物本身被感染了。但一些审查该报告的科学家表示，来自动物——尤其是貉——的遗传物质占主导地位，这表明在2019年底的市场里，已知能够传播冠状病毒的物种确实携带了病毒。 |
| That scenario, they said, was consistent with the virus spilling into humans from market animals and touching off the pandemic, a set of circumstances similar to the one that gave rise to the first SARS outbreak in China two decades earlier. | 他们说，这种情况与病毒从市场上的动物传播到人类并引发大流行的情况是一致的，这一系列情况与20年前导致中国首次SARS暴发的情况类似。 |
| “You look at them and say those are probably infected animals,” Theodora Hatziioannou, a virologist at The Rockefeller University in New York who was not involved in the research, said of the latest findings. “If it was a human shedding the virus, one would expect to find human DNA there, too.” | “你看到它们，就会说它们可能是受感染的动物，”纽约洛克菲勒大学病毒学家西奥多拉·哈齐亚努谈到最新发现时说 ，“如果是人类在排出病毒，应该就会在那里发现人类的DNA。”哈齐亚努没有参与这项研究。 |
| The swabs could yet hold more clues about where the virus in the samples had come from. The report said, for instance, that there was evidence of particular genes that could suggest the material had come from a raccoon dog’s upper respiratory tract. | 拭子还可以提供更多关于样本中病毒来源的线索。例如，该报告称，有证据表明，特定基因可能表明这种物质来自貉的上呼吸道。 |
| Even if an animal had been infected, however, it would not be clear that it had spread the virus to people. Someone infected with the virus could have gotten a market animal sick. And only by swabbing animals directly could scientists prove whether they had been carrying the virus, a step that was precluded by the market being cleared of animals soon after the outbreak began. | 然而，即使一只动物被感染了，也不能确定它是否将病毒传播给了人类。也有可能是感染该病毒的人让市场里的动物生病。而且，只有直接对动物取拭子，科学家才能证明它们是否携带了病毒，但在疫情暴发后不久，市场上的动物就被清理了，导致不再可能操作这一步骤。 |
| The report has been the subject of intense speculation since the international experts presented their findings to the World Health Organization last week and then raced to compile their analyses. At the same time, the findings set off a battle for access to the genetic sequences at their heart. | 自从这些国际专家上周向世界卫生组织提交了他们的研究结果，然后加紧编写分析报告以来，这份报告引发了强烈的猜测。与此同时，这些发现引发了一场获取核心基因序列的斗争。 |
| Chinese scientists had initially uploaded the raw sequences to a global database some time after publishing a study describing them last year. But once the international experts discovered the data in early March and alerted Chinese researchers to what they had found, the data was taken offline. | 中国科学家在去年发表了一篇描述这些原始序列的研究后，一开始曾将其上传到一个全球数据库。但当国际专家在3月初发现这些数据，并提醒中国研究人员他们的发现后，这些数据就被下线了。 |
| Last week, the W.H.O. rebuked China for hiding such crucial information from the rest of the world for three years. Now the nonprofit organization based in Munich that runs the database, called GISAID, has come under scrutiny for its role in controlling access to the data. | 上周，世界卫生组织谴责中国向世界其他国家隐瞒如此重要的信息长达三年之久。现在，总部位于慕尼黑的非营利组织GISAID因其在控制数据访问方面的作用而受到审视。 |
| In the new report, the international team of scientists said that GISAID had “deviated from its stated mission” in allowing the Chinese researchers to withhold the data for so long. | 在这份新报告中，国际科学家团队表示，GISAID“偏离了其既定使命”，允许中国研究人员如此长时间地隐瞒数据。 |
| The database administrators responded to the report on Tuesday by cutting off the team members’ access to their online accounts and saying that they had violated its rules by getting out ahead of the Chinese scientists and posting their own analysis. The scientists said that they hewed to GISAID’s database-access agreement in downloading and studying the sequences, and noted that they had made multiple offers to work with the Chinese scientists. | 数据库管理方对该报告作出了回应，在周二封锁了该团队成员的网络账号，称他们因抢在中国科学家之前发布自己的分析而违反了规则。科学家们表示，他们在下载和研究序列时遵守了GISAID的数据库访问协议，并指出他们已多次发出与中国科学家合作的提议。 |
| “The ramifications of cutting off access to this group of authors are huge,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and co-author of the new report, noting that GISAID also jeopardized work by team members related to coronavirus variants and flu preparedness. “They’re making false accusations.” | 亚利桑那大学进化生物学家、新报告的合著者迈克尔·沃罗贝说：“切断该团队作者的访问权限将产生重大影响”，他指出，GISAID的做法还危及到与冠状病毒变体和流感应对准备相关研究的团队成员的工作。“他们的指控有违事实。” |
| The international team homed in on raccoon dogs — fluffy mammals related to foxes and sold for meat and fur — because of how much of the animals’ genetic material was found in the key swab from the cart and because they are known to spread the virus. They said their findings were consistent with that animal harboring the virus, which originated in bats, and passing it to humans at the market. | 由于在关键的手推车拭子上发现了很多貉的遗传物质，而且众所周知它们会传播病毒，该国际团队的研究聚焦于这种毛茸茸的哺乳动物——它们与狐狸有亲缘关系，市场上会售卖其肉和毛皮。他们说，他们的发现符合这种动物携带了起源于蝙蝠的病毒、并在市场上将其传染给人类的说法。 |
| “This isn’t an infected animal,” said Joel Wertheim, a virologist at the University of California, San Diego and a co-author of the report, referring to the new genetic data. “But this is the closest you can get without having the animal in front of you.” | “这不是一只受感染的动物，”加州大学圣地亚哥分校的病毒学家、该报告合著者乔尔·沃特海姆在谈到新的基因数据时说。“但这是在当下没有动物的情况下你能获得的最接近的东西。” |
| The report, though, also offered the most concrete evidence to date of other animals susceptible to the virus being sold at the market, noted Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and a co-author of the report. Genetic material from those animals — like the masked palm civet, a small Asian mammal that was implicated in the SARS outbreak two decades ago — was also found in swabs that were positive for the coronavirus. | 不过，位于加利福尼亚州拉霍亚的斯克里普斯研究所的病毒学家、报告合著者克里斯蒂安·安德森指出，对于市场上出售的其他易感染该病毒的动物，该报告也提供了迄今为止最实质性的证据。这些动物的遗传物质也在冠状病毒呈阳性的拭子中被发现，其中包括与20年前SARS暴发有关的小型亚洲哺乳动物果子狸。 |
| “It’s literally Disney Land for zoonotic transfer,” said Joseph DeRisi, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, referring to the range of animals documented in the report. | “这简直就是传播人畜共患病的迪士尼乐园，”在谈到报告中记录的动物种类之繁多时，加州大学旧金山分校生物化学教授兼陈-扎克伯格生物中心联合主席约瑟夫·德里西说。 |
| A number of other swabs at the market found large quantities of human genetic material — an indication, the report said, of certain virus samples likely being shed by infected people. Many of the earliest known Covid patients worked or shopped at the market. | 研究者在该市场上的许多其他拭子上发现了大量人类遗传物质——报告称，这表明某些病毒样本可能是由感染者排出的。许多已知最早的新冠患者都曾在这个市场工作或采买。 |
| Still other positive swabs, the report said, were dominated by genetic material from animals that are not believed to be susceptible to the virus. A sample taken from a fish packaging surface, for example, contained a lot of fish genetic material. That virus was likely to have been deposited by a person, scientists said, illustrating that substantial amounts of animal genetic material did not necessarily mean that animals had produced the virus there. | 不过报告也提到，在其它检出阳性的拭子中，大部分遗传物质来自被认为不易感染该病毒的动物。例如，从一个鱼肉包装表面采集的样本含有大量鱼遗传物质。科学家说，这种病毒很可能是由一个人留下的，这说明大量的动物遗传物质并不一定意味着动物在那里产生了病毒。 |
| Citing those findings, some scientists said that the kinds of swabs analyzed in the report simply could not offer conclusive proof of an infected animal. | 一些科学家援引这些发现称，报告中分析的那种拭子根本无法提供动物受到感染的确凿证据。 |
| “The report does contain useful information,” Sergei Pond, a virologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, said. But, he added, “Does it tell you anything about which animal was infected? It really doesn’t.” | “这份报告确实包含了有用的信息，”费城坦普尔大学的病毒学家谢尔盖·庞德说。但是，他还说，“它能告诉你是哪只动物被感染了吗？实际上没有。” |
| Dr. David Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford, said that it was difficult to assess the findings without more details about how the Chinese investigators had collected and analyzed their swabs. The Chinese paper last year, he noted, described using a kit to filter out human genetic material and make the tests more sensitive to the virus. | 斯坦福大学微生物学家戴维·雷尔曼博士说，如果没有更多关于中国研究人员如何收集和分析他们的拭子的细节，就很难评估这些发现。他指出，中国团队去年的论文描述使用一个工具过滤掉人类遗传物质，提高检测对该病毒的灵敏度。 |
| But a number of swabs from the Chinese researchers described in the international team’s report contained substantial amounts of human genetic material, suggesting that those filtering methods had not depleted the samples of human material. Dr. DeRisi, who specializes in the type of analysis described in the report, said that such kits were generally ineffective at removing the genetic signatures of people. | 但国际团队报告中描述的中国研究人员使用的一些拭子含有大量人类遗传物质，这表明这些过滤方法并未消除人类物质样本。研究报告中描述的这种分析方法是德里西的专长，他说，此类工具通常无法有效去除人类的遗传特征。 |
| Frederic Bushman, a microbiologist at the University of Pennsylvania who also specializes in sequencing techniques, agreed that the report’s methods were sound. | 宾夕法尼亚大学微生物学家弗雷德里克·布什曼也专门研究测序技术，他认为该报告的方法没有问题。 |
| “I think the simplest explanation is that it’s an infected raccoon dog,” he said. “I don’t think it’s absolute proof.” | “我认为最简单的解释是，它是一只受感染的貉，”他说。“我不认为这是绝对的证据。” |
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