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The Ebola alarmists
埃博拉恐慌者
Stoking panic will not help America fight Ebola
引發恐慌對美國戰勝埃博拉無益
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. Apparently the Hippocratic oath does not cover panic-mongering: Dr Paul has popped up on talk-radio shows, alleging 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”.
肯塔基的蘭德·保羅（Rand Paul）從一群埃博拉恐慌者中挺身而出。他之前是一名眼科醫生，如今則是一名有著精選總統雄心的共和黨議員。顯然，希波克拉底誓言沒能抵擋住恐慌的傳播。保羅醫生出現在了電臺談話節目中，聲稱奧巴馬及其科學家所說的 “埃博拉病毒很難傳染”的說法是在撒謊。或者正如他所說，他們可能為了“政治正確性”而淡化埃博拉可能傳遍全美的風險。保羅醫生在談到醫生即使穿戴好防護服并做了“一切預防措施”后仍然患病時說道，埃博拉有著“難以置信的傳染性”。
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 isolated and is not yet known to have infected anyone else.
沒人能夠否認埃博拉在非洲是個巨大的難題，也沒人否認，如果埃博拉傳到貧民區，比如孟買，則必然是場災難。但是發達國家擁有資源，如果資源能送達非洲海岸，就能夠控制事態。美國迄今為止有一例埃博拉病例，是一名來自利比里亞的男性，死于10月8日。盡管德克薩斯醫院起初誤診，但他隨后被隔離，至今尚不清楚他已經傳染給了多少人。
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 Ted 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 concessions 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).
同樣在10月8日，聯邦政府宣布，所有從西非來的乘客將在美國五大機場進行埃博拉病毒的篩查。多名政客要求出臺更加嚴厲的防范措施。有幾名人士質疑，為什么從非洲疫區國家來的航班仍在通航，而保羅就是其中之一。路易斯安那州州長博比金達爾（Bobby Jindal）說，飛機必須停飛，以“保護我們民眾的安全”。德克薩斯州參議員泰德·科魯茲（Ted Cruz）將奧巴馬讓航空公司服務西非的意愿，與美國聯邦航空局在以色列一重要機場附近遭火箭襲擊后于7月作出“高度警戒”，決定停飛一切以色列航班這件事情進行比較，并怒斥道，這就像是美國政府在向以色列施壓，讓以色列同意向哈馬斯作出讓步。諸多總統候選人都敦促政府出臺埃博拉疫區的出行禁令。少有人提及多數從非洲到美國的航班需要在歐洲中轉，這使得想要在不封鎖大西洋航線的情況下而阻止來自非洲的民眾是很難的事。
Dr Paul is, to date, alone in suggesting that—in deploying 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?”
保羅是迄今為止唯一提出“被奧巴馬部署到非洲建立臨時醫院的軍隊，可能是被送去面臨恐怖電影中的死亡橋段”的人。保羅說，我們都知道腹瀉是如何在游輪上進行傳播，“你能想象一船人那么多的士兵被染上埃博拉的情況嗎？”
Government doctors are working to calm the public, notably 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 enquiring 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.
政府部門的醫生正在安撫群眾，特別是疾控中心的領導湯姆·弗里登（Tom Frieden），和美國國立衛生研究院下屬傳染病機構的領導安東尼·福西（Anthony Fauci）。他們在電視上花了好幾個小時的時間忍受主持人對“敏感地區”以及埃博拉是否會被恐怖分子利用等的詢問。（福西醫生淡淡的回答說，埃博拉是“低效”的生物武器，并補充道，病毒在自然界中的進化遠比這個可怕。）他倆反復的解釋為什么隔離西非是不明智的。因為這會削弱政府的控制、阻礙援助的進行、誘騙美國民眾并刺激出行者用迂回的方式出行從而使得追蹤更加的困難。
To be fair, Democrats 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 sequester, 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.
公平地說，民主黨人也玩起了“病毒政治”。第一則有關埃博拉的攻擊性廣告出現于8月，阿肯色州參議員馬克·普萊爾（Mark Pryor） 指責其共和黨的對手湯姆·科頓（Tom Cotton） 投票反對流行病預防法案（但并沒有提及科頓之后投票贊成該法案的另一個版本）。民主黨人把埃博拉危機與隔離、全面削減聯邦開支聯系在一起，而聯邦開支的削減將導致公共醫療基金和海外援助的相應縮減。說真的，國會花了數年時間把科研經費搞得一團糟，但這并不是埃博拉在非洲爆發的原因。事實上，自從2005年亞洲爆發H5N1型禽流感以來，美國已經在流行病預防上傾注了數十億美元。小布什時期的衛生部部長邁克爾·萊維特（Michael Leavitt）在禽流感恐慌中時曾說道，美國“比以往任何時候都準備得更加充分”。
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.
皮尤研究中心一項新的民意調查顯示了部落意識是如何扭曲信任的。皮尤發現，由于奧巴馬在白宮任職，所以共和黨人比民主黨人更加懷疑政府預防埃博拉大爆發的能力。相比之下，在2005年，共和黨人在小布什能否夠控制禽流感這一問題上則遠比民主黨人要自信。
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 isolation from the world; or (counter-intuitively) is it less risky 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 painstaking health-checks at airports and hospitals?
然而，近年來，不信任也像病毒一樣發生了突變。美國對埃博拉的爭論是，或者說應該是一場關于如何最好的利用國家強大資源的爭論。也就是說，是追求與世界的完全隔離更加安全？還是說（與我們的直覺相反）運用控制下的開放戰略，利用它的資源來領導全球的埃博拉戰爭，并信任專家能夠通過在機場和醫院辛苦的健康檢查來阻止埃博拉在美國爆發的這種方式，對美國而言風險更?。?/div>
That sort of argument will always expose philosophical differences. Reasonable people will often disagree: some instinctively 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 partisan 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.
這種爭論總會暴露出不同觀點間的哲學差異。明智的人常常不會同意一些人把他們自己的信仰放入安全地帶，卻讓其他人的信仰處于危險之中。對政府能力提出刁鉆問題是件好事。因為政府作為國家權威代理者經常犯錯。加劇黨派對峙火焰的危機并不是什么新鮮事，2005年，極左派指責布什沒能對卡特里娜颶風做出恰當的回應是或是因為他不關心新奧爾良的黑人居民。
Conspiracy theories go viral
陰謀論不脛而走
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, conspiracies lurk, with technocrats 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 heed what he sniffily calls “the experts”.
但這種源自非洲讓人厭煩的病毒的到來也反映出一些其他的東西。有野心的政客不再只是攻擊另一黨派或是總統。埃博拉恐慌者的出發點是對背后政治差異、技術官僚密謀陰謀的假設。保羅似乎認為，官員在淡化疫情風險時故意撒謊?？启斊潉t輕描淡寫的建議美國聯邦航空局（FAA）去恐嚇以色列。路易斯安那州州長抱怨認為飛行禁令弊大于利的政府，想讓美國民眾去聽從那些被他呲之以鼻稱為“磚家”的人的說法。
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.
一些領導則更有責任感。德克薩斯州的共和黨州長里科·佩里（Rick Perry）試圖安撫民眾。他向德克薩斯的民眾保證，沒有哪個國家擁有像美國這么好的、能夠保障公共安全的設備。他是對的。這根本不必說出來。人盡皆知。譯者：蕭毛毛 校對：靳方方
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