[2023-01-01] 华盛顿邮报 - 社论：中国的武肺大爆发恰恰说明我们为什么需要基因组预警雷达

The U.S. government’s decision to require inbound air passengers from China to show a negative test for the coronavirus starting Jan. 5 might reassure the public, but is probably of limited practical use. It might delay transmission of a new variant, although China is now afflicted mostly with omicron, which is already widespread in the United States and elsewhere. A second decision announced Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is more significant and underscores the urgent need for genomic viral surveillance.
美国政府决定从 1 月 5 日开始要求从中国入境的航空旅客对冠状病毒进行阴性检测，这可能会安抚公众，但实际用途可能有限。这可能会延迟新变种的传播，尽管中国现在正受到影响主要是奥密克戎，它已经在美国和其他地方广泛使用。疾病控制和预防中心周三宣布的第二项决定更为重要，并强调了对基因组病毒监测的迫切需要。

That second decision was to expand the traveler-based genomic surveillance program, or TGS, which can detect and characterize new variants of the virus that causes covid-19. The program takes nasal swabs, volunteered by travelers at major U.S. international airports, and tests them for the coronavirus. If the coronavirus is detected, the virus genome is sequenced to identify any new variants. The samples are kept anonymous. On Wednesday, the CDC expanded it to Los Angeles and Seattle, for a total of seven airports, covering 500 flights from at least 30 countries, including about 290 weekly flights from China and surrounding areas. About 80,000 travelers participated from November 2021 to December 2022. The program has also begun aircraft lavatory wastewater surveillance. This effort ought to be expanded into a national and eventually global radar system keeping watch for emerging viruses and bacteria.
第二个决定是扩大基于旅行者的基因组监测计划，或 TGS，它可以检测和表征导致武汉肺炎的病毒的新变种。它们用于冠状病毒。如果检测到冠状病毒，则对病毒基因组进行测序以识别任何新的变体。样本保持匿名。周三，CDC 将其扩展到洛杉矶和西雅图，共计 7 个机场，涵盖来自至少 30 个国家的 500 个航班，其中包括来自中国和周边地区的每周约 290 个航班. 从2021年11月到2022年12月，约有80,000名旅客参与，该计划还开始了飞机厕所废水监测，全球雷达系统时刻关注新出现的病毒和细菌。

Even the current, limited sentinel has value, especially at this moment. China is undergoing an explosion of cases after the abrupt lifting of its “zero covid” policy. Its elderly are under-vaccinated, and the population lacks natural immunity to omicron. The danger is that its escalating toll of infections could generate new variants that might be more transmissible or cause more severe disease, and thus become a threat to the entire world. However, because China refuses to be transparent about the cases, deaths and genomics, the only way to detect variants is to be vigilant outside its borders.
即使是目前有限的哨兵也有价值，尤其是在这个时候。中国在突然取消“动态清零”政策后正经历病例激增，老年人疫苗接种不足，人群对奥密克戎缺乏天然免疫力。是其不断上升的感染人数可能会产生新的变种，这些变种可能更具传播性或导致更严重的疾病，从而成为对整个世界的威胁。然而，由于中国拒绝对病例、死亡和基因组学保持透明，因此检测变体的唯一方法是在其边界之外保持警惕。

When two flights landed in Milan this week from China, Italian health authorities reported that half the passengers tested positive for the coronavirus. Fortunately, subsequent sequencing showed they were infected with omicron, not a new variant. On Thursday, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said the variants spreading in China are already circulating in Europe, which has built up both natural and vaccination immunity.
本周，当两架航班从中国降落在米兰时，意大利卫生当局报告说，一半乘客的冠状病毒检测呈阳性。幸运的是，随后的测序显示他们感染了 omicron，而不是新变种。周四，欧洲疾病预防中心和 Control 表示，在中国传播的变种已经在欧洲传播，欧洲已经建立了自然免疫和疫苗接种免疫。

But China is not the only worry. Variants can emerge from anywhere. An aggressive new offspring of omicron, XBB.1.5, is taking hold in New York and the Northeast. CDC models say the XBB variants represent about 40.5 percent of the total infections in the country. According to epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, XBB.1.5 appears to be similar to others in terms of being evasive of immune systems; it has more capability to stick to human cells, but in laboratory tests, it is not yet clear that it is more transmissible.
但中国并不是唯一令人担忧的地方。变种可以从任何地方出现。omicron 的一个攻击性新后代 XBB.1.5 正在纽约和东北部扎根。CDC 模型表示 XBB 变种约占美国总感染的 40.5%流行病学家 Katelyn Jetelina 表示，XBB.1.5 在逃避免疫系统方面似乎与其他病毒相似；它具有更强的粘附人体细胞的能力，但在实验室测试中，尚不清楚它是否更具传播性。

Tighter scrutiny of passengers coming from China is a short-term measure that can buy time. In the longer run, the nation and the world need to build a system of early warning by viral genomic surveillance.
加强对来自中国的旅客的审查是一种可以争取时间的短期措施，从长远来看，国家和世界需要通过病毒基因组监测建立预警系统。

标红字体均为楼主更改，与原文作者无关。

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