新闻来源：The Times；作者：George Arbuthnott, Jonathan Calvert and Philip Sherwell；

翻译： Hemingway & 文意 & TCC & linda琳达；简评: Hemingway&TCC；PR：InAHurry； PAGE:玄天生；

简评：

因检测技术方法的进步和检测范围的扩大，我们可以看到新增病例人数快速增长：截止今天(7/9)，全球感染人数已超过1千两百万人次，同时，全球死亡人数已超过50万。现在各国最想要知道的讯息就是是病毒的来源。因为只有有了完整的原始病毒序列，才能真正了解此病毒的特性，更重要的是可制造有效预防性疫苗。这篇文章提供了多方直接与间接的证据 - 从起源到传播。

从病毒演化的角度，一般自然产生病毒的致命性和传播度是成反比。懂得一点生物学常识的人都不难想明白，只存在着高致命性切相对低传播率的病毒，在传播的过程中渐渐向低致命性且高传播率的病毒的演化；或者是正好相反的演化方向：由低致命性高传播率向高致命性低传播率的方向演变。而从源头就存在着明显不同重症和轻症的两种亚型的感染患者，本身就说明，从一开始就同时存在杀人者和传播者两种病毒。这是自然进化规律中不可能存在的现象。这本身就是该病毒非自然演化的铁证。而从疫情从武汉一开始，中共就意识到这种病毒的两种亚型，并建了方舱医院以应付轻症患者，同时也建造了24小时使用的焚化炉处理与日俱增的病逝者。这些举动明显证实了中共对病毒非自然属性了然于心。不管之后事情的发展中，加了多少细枝末节以粉饰和扭曲最初的事实，最简单的逻辑里早已显现了不可辩驳的真相。

现在全球已渐渐觉醒，对中共的邪恶及其超限战的布局渗透的了解也在逐步加深。尤其在最近，中共罔顾西方正义力量(五眼联盟英国，及欧盟)的警告，仍然执意执行香港版的国安法，这是他们与世界脱钩的第一步-政治脱勾。等到爆料革命英雄科学家出手公开揭露这病毒是由中共”制造”的真相，中共将无从遁形，自然与世界脱钩，招世人所唾弃。

原文翻译：

Revealed: Seven year coronavirus trail from mine deaths to a Wuhan lab

揭露：七年冠状病毒追踪，从矿难死亡到武汉实验室

The world’s closest known relative to the Covid-19 virus was found in 2013 by Chinese scientists in an abandoned mine where it was linked to deaths caused by a coronavirus-type respiratory illness

2013年，中共国科学家在一个废弃的矿山中发现了世界上与CCP病毒最接近的病毒类型，那个病毒与冠状病毒型呼吸道疾病引起的死亡有关。

In the monsoon season of August 2012 a small team of scientists travelled to southwest China to investigate a new and mysteriously lethal illness. After driving through terraced tea plantations, they reached their destination: an abandoned copper mine where — in white hazmat suits and respirator masks — they ventured into the darkness.

2012年8月的季风季节，一小组科学家前往中国西南部探究一种新型的神秘致死性疾病。在车穿过梯田的茶园后，他们到达了目的地：一个废弃的铜矿。科学家们身着白色危险品防护服和防毒面具，在黑暗中冒险前进。

Instantly, they were struck by the stench. Overhead, bats roosted. Underfoot, rats and shrews scurried through thick layers of their droppings. It was a breeding ground for mutated micro-organisms and pathogens deadly to human beings. There was a reason to take extra care. Weeks earlier, six men who had entered the mine had been struck down by an illness that caused an uncontrollable pneumonia. Three of them died.

立刻，他们感到一股恶臭。头顶上，是蝙蝠栖息的地方。脚下，老鼠在蝙蝠的厚厚的粪便里密集地爬来爬去。这是对人类致命的突变微生物和病原体的温床。有理由要格外小心。几周前，进入矿山的六名男子患上了无法控制的肺炎。其中三人已死亡。

Today, as deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic exceed half a million and economies totter, the bats’ repellent lair has taken on global significance.

如今，随着CCP病毒大流行造成的死亡人数已超过50万人，全球经济受到重创，这个蝙蝠巢穴有着全球性的意义。

Evidence seen by The Sunday Times suggests that a virus found in its depths — part of a faecal sample that was frozen and sent to a Chinese laboratory for analysis and storage — is the closest known match to the virus that causes Covid-19.

《星期日泰晤士报》看到的证据表明，有一种在（该矿井）深处被找到的病毒（一个粪便的样本的一部分，冷冻之后被送到中共国实验室进行分析和存储）是已知的、与导致CCP病毒大流行的病毒最接近的病毒。

It came from one of the last droppings collected in the year-long quest, during which the six researchers sent hundreds of samples back to their home city of Wuhan. There, experts on bat viruses were trying to identify the source of the Sars — severe acute respiratory syndrome — pandemic 10 years earlier.

它来自于为期一年的探索中收集的最后一批粪便。在此期间，六名研究人员将数百个样本送回了他们的家乡武汉。那里，蝙蝠病毒专家正试图找出10年前曾大流行的严重急性呼吸道综合症（SARS）的来源。

The virus was a huge discovery. It was a “new strain” of a Sars-type coronavirus that, surprisingly, received only a passing mention in an academic paper. The six sick men were not referred to at all.

矿山里的病毒是一个巨大的发现。 这是SARS型冠状病毒的“新毒株”，但令人惊讶的是，仅在一篇学术论文中被简单提及，而六个病人则完全没有被提起。

What happened to the virus in the years between its discovery and the eruption of Covid-19? Why was its existence tucked away in obscure records, and its link to three deaths not mentioned?

从它被发现到CCP病毒COVID-19之间的几年里，该病毒发生了什么？为什么它的存在被隐晦的记录所掩盖，却没人提到与其有关的三例死亡案例？

Nobody can deny the bravery of the scientists who risked their lives by harvesting the highly infectious virus. But did their courageous detective work lead inadvertently to a global disaster?

没有人会否认冒着生命危险收集高度传染性病毒而的科学家们的英勇。但是他们勇敢的侦探工作，是否无意间导致了全球性的灾难？

ONE. Where flowers bloom all year

第一章. 永春之城

The first victims of a new virus

新病毒的第一批受害者

Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in southwest China, is known as “the city of eternal spring” because its unique climate encourages flowers to bloom all year. The sprawling high-rise buildings of the First Affiliated Hospital tower over the ancient city.

昆明是中国西南部云南省的省会，素有“春城”之称，因为其独特的气候条件全年花开。其第一附属医院庞大的高层建筑，耸立在这座古城之上。

On Tuesday April 24, 2012, a 45-year-old man with the surname of Guo was admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit suffering from severe pneumonia.

2012年4月24日星期二，一名45岁郭姓男子因患严重肺炎被送进医院的重症监护室。

The next day a 42-year-old man with the surname Lv was taken to the hospital with the same life-threatening symptoms, and by Thursday three more cases — Zhou, 63, Liu, 46, and Li, 32 — had joined him in intensive care. A sixth man called Wu, 30, was taken into intensive care the following Wednesday.

第二天，一名42岁的吕姓男子因同样的致命症状被送往医院。到星期四，又有3例患者——63岁的周某，46岁的刘某和32岁的李某被送到了重症监护室。第二周的周三，第六名30岁的男子吴被送进了重症监护室。

All the men were linked. They had been given the task of clearing out piles of bat faeces in an abandoned copper mine in the hills south of the town of Tongguan in the Mojiang region. Some had worked for two weeks before falling ill, and others just a few days.

这几个人互有关联，他们的任务是在墨江地区通关镇以南的山丘上，清理一个废弃的铜矿中的蝙蝠粪便。有的人是在工作了两周之才生病的，另几个人几天就生病了。

The illness confounded the doctors. The men had raging fevers of above 39C, coughs and aching limbs. All but one had severe difficulty in breathing.

这种疾病难住了医生。这几个人都发烧超过39摄氏度，伴有咳嗽和四肢酸痛。除了一个人，其他所有人都有呼吸困难的症状。

After the first two men died, the remaining four underwent a barrage of tests for haemorrhagic fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis and influenza, but they all came back negative. They were also tested for Sars, the outbreak that had erupted in southern China in 2002, but that also proved negative.

在两名男子死亡后，其余四人接受了出血热，登革热，日本脑炎和流行性感冒的检测，但结果均为阴性。他们还接受了非典型肺炎（SARS）的检测，这是2002年在中国南部爆发的一次疫情，但结果也呈阴性的。

The doctors sought the opinion of Professor Zhong Nanshan, a British-educated respiratory specialist and a former president of China’s medical association who had spearheaded his country’s efforts to combat Sars. Aware the men might be suffering from another Sars-related coronavirus, he advised the doctors to test them for antibodies.

这些医生征求了钟南山教授的意见。钟南山教授是一位在英国受过教育的呼吸系统专家，曾是中共国医学会主席，也曾为抗击非典做出努力。他意识到这些人可能被另一种与SARS相关的冠状病毒感染，他建议医生对他们进行抗体测试。

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a renowned centre of coronavirus expertise, was called in to test the four survivors. These produced a remarkable finding: while none had tested positive for Sars, all four had antibodies against another, unknown Sars-like coronavirus.

武汉病毒研究所（WIV）测试了这四个幸存者。这是武汉冠状病毒专业知识的研究中心。测试让他们有了异乎寻常的发现：虽然没有一个人的SARS检测呈阳性，但全部四人都具有另一种未知的类似SARS冠状病毒的抗体。

Furthermore, two patients who recovered and went home showed greater levels of antibodies than two still in hospital, one of whom later died.

此外，康复回家的两名患者的抗体水平高于仍在医院的两名患者。仍在住院的两位患者中，其中一名后来也死亡了。

Researchers in China have been unable to find any news reports of this new Sars-like coronavirus and the three deaths. There appears to have been a media blackout. It is, however, possible to piece together what happened in the Kunming hospital from a master’s thesis by a young medic called Li Xu. His supervisor was Professor Qian Chuanyun, who worked in the emergency department that treated the men. Other vital details, including the results of the antibody tests, were found in a PhD paper by a student of the director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

中共国的研究人员一直找不到有关这种新的类SARS冠状病毒引起的三例死亡的新闻报道。似乎媒体有意不报道。但是，从一位年轻的医生李旭的硕士论文中的描述，我们可以拼凑整理出昆明医院发生的事情。这位医生的上司是钱传云教授，钱教授在急诊科工作，当时负责治疗这些病人。中共国疾病预防控制中心主任的一名学生，在博士学位论文中也记录了这些病例的其他重要细节，包括抗体测试的结果。

Li’s thesis was unable to say what exactly killed the three miners, but indicated that the most likely cause was a Sars-like coronavirus from a bat.

李的论文没能说明究竟是什么杀死了这三名矿工，但论文指出最可能的原因，是蝙蝠身上的一种类似SARS的冠状病毒。

“This makes the research of the bats in the mine where the six miners worked and later suffered from severe pneumonia caused by unknown virus a significant research topic,” Li concluded.

“这使得针对该矿井中的蝙蝠的研究，成为了一个重要的研究课题。该矿井里的矿工因未知病毒而患上了严重的肺炎。”李旭总结说。

That research was already under way — led by the Wuhan virologist who became known as “Bat Woman” — and it adds to the mystery.

这项研究已经在武汉病毒学家的带领下进行。该病毒学家后来被称为“蝙蝠女”，更增加了他的神秘感。

TWO. The bat heroine

第二章. 蝙蝠女主角

The Bat Woman heralded as a hero in China

蝙蝠女被誉为中共英雄

For historians of the Chinese Communist Party, Wuhan is where the 72-year-old Mao Tse-tung took a symbolic swim in the Yangtze River in 1966 before launching the Cultural Revolution. For generations born since that disastrous era, the modern industrial city is the crossroads of China’s high-speed rail network and was the centre of the Covid-19 pandemic.

对于中共历史学家来说，武汉是72岁的毛泽东在1966年发动文化大革命之前，进行了有象征意义的“畅游长江”的 地方。对于那个灾难时代之后出生的一两代人来说，武汉是中共国高铁网络十字路口上的现代化工业城市，也是CCP病毒大流行的中心。

For science, however, Wuhan is the centre for research into the coronavirus in bats. Shi Zhengli, nicknamed “Bat Woman” by her colleagues, is heralded as a hero in China and in scientific communities across the world.

但就科学而言，武汉是蝙蝠冠状病毒研究的中心。石正丽被她的同事们昵称为“蝙蝠女”，被誉为中共国乃至全世界科学界的英雄。

But the bats in Yunnan are 1,000 miles from her laboratory, and one of the most extraordinary coincidences of the Covid-19 pandemic is that ground zero happened to be in Wuhan, the world centre for the study and storage of the types of coronavirus the city’s own scientists believe caused the outbreak.

但云南的蝙蝠距离她的实验室有1,000英里，而Covid-19大流行最奇妙的巧合之一就是，它的发源地地位于武汉。武汉是世界上研究和储存冠状病毒类型的世界中心。这座城市自己的科学家也认为这些病毒是大爆发原因。

Coronaviruses are a group of pathogens that sometimes have the potential to leap species from animals to humans and appear to have a crown — or corona — of spikes when viewed under a microscope.

冠状病毒，是一组有时可能会导致跨物种从动物跃迁到人类的病原体，并且在显微镜下观察时呈现出冠状。

Before Covid-19, six types of coronavirus were known to infect humans but mostly they caused mild respiratory symptoms such as the common cold.

在CCP病毒之前，有六种已知冠状病毒可以感染人类，但大多数只会引起轻度呼吸道症状，例如普通感冒。

The first outbreak of Sars — now known as Sars-Cov-1 to distinguish it from Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 — is one of the deadly exceptions. It emerged in Guangdong, southern China, in November 2002 and infected 8,096 people in 29 countries. It caused severe pneumonia in some and killed 774 people before petering out eight months later.

SARS的首次爆发（现在称为Sars-Cov-1，以区别于引起Covid-19的病毒Sars-Cov-2）是致命的例外之一。它于2002年11月在中共国南方的广东省出现，感染了29个国家的8,096人。它导致了一些人的严重肺炎，并导致了774人死亡，并在八个月后逐渐消失。

A race began to find out how a coronavirus had mutated into something so deadly and jumped from animals to humans. The initial prime suspects were masked palm civet cats, a delicacy in some parts of China. But suspicion shifted to bats, which had also been linked to other deadly viruses such as rabies. Perhaps they were the primary source and civets were just intermediaries that they infected.

一场竞相寻找冠状病毒如何突变得如此致命，且怎样完成从动物到人的跨物种传播的比赛开始了，最初主要被怀疑的中间媒介是果子狸，这种动物在中共国某些地区是一道佳肴。但随后，可疑对象转移到了蝙蝠身上，蝙蝠也与比如狂犬病等其他致命病毒有关。当时认为蝙蝠是病毒的源头，而果子狸可能是被蝙蝠病毒感染的中间宿主。

Shi and her team from the WIV began hunting among bat colonies in caves in southern China in 2004. In 2012 they were in the midst of a five-year research project centred on caves in remote mountains southwest of Kunming when the call came to investigate the incident in the copper mine about 200 miles away.

2004年，石和她在武汉病毒研究所的团队开始在中国南方洞穴的蝙蝠群落中寻找病毒。2012年，他们正在昆明西南部偏远山区的洞穴中进行一项为期五年的研究项目，研究队接到了电话让他们调查200英里外的铜矿事件。

They were joined by local disease control experts when they descended into the mine that August with protective equipment and bat-catching nets.

同年8月，当地疾病控制专家和他们一起带着防护设备和抓蝙蝠网进入了矿井。

Over the next year, the scientists took faecal samples from 276 bats. The samples were stored at minus 80C in a special solution and dispatched to the Wuhan institute, where molecular studies and analysis were conducted.

在接下来的一年里，科学家们从276只蝙蝠身上采集了粪便样本。样品被储存在零下80摄氏度的溶液里后发往武汉研究所进行分子研究和分析。

These showed that exactly half the bats carried coronaviruses and several were carrying more than one virus at a time — with the potential to cause a dangerous new mix of pathogens.

这些样本显示，正好有一半的蝙蝠携带冠状病毒，其中几只蝙蝠携带不止一种病毒，这有可能引起新的，危险的病原体组合。

The results were reported in a scientific paper entitled “Coexistence of multiple coronaviruses in several bat colonies in an abandoned mineshaft” co-authored by Shi and her fellow scientists in 2016.

这一结果被发表在了2016年由石和她的同行科学家共同撰写的一篇题为"《多种冠状病毒共存在废弃的矿井中几个蝙蝠群落》的科学论文中。

Notably, the paper makes no mention of why the study had been carried out: the miners, their pneumonia and the deaths of three of them.

值得注意的是，本文没有提到为什么他们进行了这项研究：矿工，他们的肺炎和其中三人死亡的事实。

The paper does state, however, that of the 152 genetic sequences of coronavirus found in the six species of bats in the mineshaft, two were of the type that had caused Sars. One is classified as a “new strain” of Sars and labelled RaBtCoV/4991. It was found in a Rhinolophus affinis, commonly known as a horseshoe bat. The towering significance of RaBtCov/4991 would not be fully understood for seven years.

然而，本文指出了，从矿井生活的6种蝙蝠中发现的152种冠状病毒基因序列中，有两种是引起SARS的病毒。其中一种被归类为SARS的"新菌株"，并被标注为RaBtCoV/4991。它是在Rhinolophus affinis，俗称马蹄蝙蝠上被发现的。但RaBtCov/4991的显著性直到七年后才被充分理解。

THREE. An ordinary coronavirus

第三章. 一个普通的冠状病毒

The top security lab at the centre of Wuhan

武汉市中心的顶级安全实验室

A new facility was taking shape on the virology institute campus on the west side of the Yangtze in Wuhan. Built by a contractor for the People’s Liberation Army under strict secrecy, a top-security laboratory for handling deadly human pathogens was unveiled in 2017.

武汉长江西侧的病毒学研究所校园内正在建设一座新设施。这个由中国人民解放军承包商在严格保密下建造的，用于处理致命人类病原体的顶级安全实验室于2017年揭幕。

There were 31 such laboratories in the world at the time but this was China’s first. The new lab had been certified by the Chinese authorities as “biosafety level 4”, or BSL-4, the highest. But it was raising eyebrows internationally.

当时世界上有31个这样的实验室，但是这是中共国的第一个。新实验室已被中共国当局认证为"生物安全4级"，即最高BSL-4。但这在国际上引起了人们的怀疑。

Scientists and biosafety experts were concerned that the closed nature of the Chinese state and the emphasis on hierarchy would prove incompatible with running such a dangerous facility.

科学家和生物安全专家们担心，中共国政府的封闭性质和对等级制度的重视，是与运行如此危险的设施格格不入的。

“Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” Tim Trevan, a consultant in biosecurity, told the science magazine Nature when it opened.

生物安全顾问蒂姆•特雷万（TimTrevan）在这个实验室建成后这样告诉科学杂志《自然》："观点的多样性、平行的结构、每个人都可以自由地直言不讳和信息开放是非常重要。”

Laboratory leaks are not uncommon. In the past, ebola and the fatal bat disease Marburg, which kills nine out of 10 people infected, have escaped from BSL-4 laboratories in the US. American health authorities recorded 749 laboratory safety breaches in the six years to 2015. Indeed, several people were infected by Sars in 2004 after an accident at China’s National Institute of Virology in Beijing.

实验室泄漏并不罕见。过去，埃博拉和致命的蝙蝠病马尔堡（Marburg）曾经逃离过美国BSL-4实验室，该病导致了10名感染者中有9人死亡。美国卫生当局在2015年之前的六年中共记录了749起实验室安全违规事件。事实上，2004年，北京的中国国家病毒学研究所在发生事故后，有不少人感染了SARS。

The need for a secure facility in Wuhan was obvious, however. Shi and her team had already collected hundreds of samples of the coronavirus — including RaBtCov/4991 — from their work on bats across Yunnan province, and they were running controversial experiments to find out how they might mutate to become more infectious to humans.

显然，武汉需要的是一个安全的设施。石和她的团队已经从他们在云南省的蝙蝠研究中收集了数百个冠状病毒样本，包括RaBtCov/4991，而且他们正在进行有争议的实验，即找出病毒如何能变异，使得它们对人体更具传染性。

This “gain-of-function” work is described in papers released by the WIV between 2015 and 2017, scientists say. Shi’s team combined snippets of different coronaviruses to see if they could be made more transmissible in what they called “virus infectivity experiments”.

科学家说，这种"功能增益"工作在武汉病毒研究所2015年至2017年发布的论文中有描述。石的团队结合了不同冠状病毒的片段，来观察它们能否在所谓的"病毒感染性实验"中变得更易传播。

It was controversial because it had the potential to turn bat coronaviruses into human pathogens capable of causing a pandemic. In 2014 the US government issued a ban on funding any endeavour to make a virus more contagious.

这（项实验）是有争议的，因为它有可能把蝙蝠冠状病毒变成人类病原体，能够引起大流行。2014年，美国政府发布禁令，禁止资助任何使病毒更具传染性的努力。

Shi’s team argued that gain-of-function work increased its understanding of how an ordinary coronavirus might one day transform into a killer such as Sars.

石的研究小组却认为，功能增益工作增加了他们对普通冠状病毒如何有一天能转化为像SARS这样的杀手的理解。

Others disagreed. “The debate is whether in fact you learn more by helping to develop vaccines or even drugs by replicating a more virulent virus than currently exists, versus not doing that,” explained Deenan Pillay, professor of virology at University College London. “And I think the consensus became that the risk was too much.”

其他人则不同意（这个说法）。伦敦大学学院病毒学教授迪南·皮莱Deenan Pillay解释道："争论的焦点是，事实上，你是为了帮助开发疫苗甚至药物而复制一种比目前更致命的病毒，还是不这样做。我认为，现在的共识是这样做的风险太大了。”

In January 2018 the US embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of sending scientists with diplomatic status to Wuhan to find out what was going on in the institute’s new biosafety laboratories. They met Shi and members of her team.

2018年1月，美国驻北京大使馆采取了不同寻常的步骤，派遣具有外交地位的科学家到武汉，了解该研究所新的生物安全实验室正在做什么。他们见到了石和她的团队成员。

Details of the diplomats’ findings have been found in US diplomatic cables that were leaked to The Washington Post and others. “Most importantly,” states a cable from January 19, 2018, “the researchers also showed that various Sars-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for Sars-coronavirus. This finding strongly suggests that Sars-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause Sars-like diseases.”

这些外交官的调查结果的细节可以在被泄露给了《华盛顿邮报》等机构的美国外交电报中被发现。2018年1月19日的一条电报说道："最重要的是，研究人员还表明，各种像SARS一样冠状病毒可以与ACE2相互作用，ACE2是SARS冠状病毒的人类受体。这一发现有力地表明，蝙蝠身上像沙斯一样冠状病毒可以传染给人类，导致类似SARS的疾病。”

The Americans were evidently worried about safety. “During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” the cable added.

美国人显然很担心安全。外交电报补充说："在与武汉病毒研究所实验室的科学家互动期间，他们注意到新实验室严重缺乏经过适当培训的技术人员和研究人员，以安全地操作这个高密封实验室，" 。

Shi was in a conference in Shanghai on Monday December 30, 2019, when she received a call to say there was a new coronavirus on the loose — and it had surfaced in Wuhan, of all places. Since her work had established that such viruses were most likely to originate in south China, she found the news puzzling and extremely worrying. “I wondered if [the local health authority] got it wrong,” she told the Scientific American magazine in a rare interview this year. “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.”

2019年12月30日星期一，石在上海参加一个会议时接到了一个电话说有一种新的冠状病毒正在扩散开——它已经出现在武汉的所有地方了。由于她的研究已经确定这种病毒最有可能起源于中国南部，她感到这个消息十分令人费解和极其令人担忧。她今年在一次罕见的采访中告诉这样告诉《科学美国》杂志："我想知道（当地卫生当局）是否搞错了。我从未想过这样的事情会在中国中部的武汉发生。”

One of her initial thoughts, as she prepared to return immediately to analyse the virus, was “Could they [the new coronaviruses] have come from our lab?”. It was a natural anxiety, although she said she was later able to dismiss it after examining the lab’s records.

当她准备立即返回分析病毒时，她最初的想法之一是"它们（新型冠状病毒）能否来自我们的实验室？这是一种自然的焦虑，尽管她说，在后来检查了实验室的记录后，她解除了她的忧虑。

FOUR. Patient Zero

第四章. 零号病人

When did Covid-19 really start?

新型冠状病毒真正开始的时间？

The precise point at which Covid-19 erupted in Wuhan may never be known. Various theories have been discredited.

新型冠状病毒在武汉爆发的确切时间点可能永远不得而知。各种理论都遭到了否定。

A study by Harvard University claimed the virus may have started last August. It relied on satellite images in which the car parks of selected Wuhan hospitals looked busier. However, the study’s detractors have pointed to discrepancies in the evidence.

There is also a theory — propagated by the Chinese media — that the virus may have been introduced into the country by foreign athletes competing in the Military World Games in Wuhan last October. They included the French former world champion pentathlete Élodie Clouvel and the Italian Olympic gold medallist fencer Matteo Tagliariol, who were laid low by fever during the Games.

哈佛大学的一项研究声称，这种病毒可能是从去年8月开始的。它是依靠卫星图像（得出结论的），其中选定的武汉医院的停车场看起来比往年繁忙。然而，该研究的批评者指出了证据上的差异。还有一种理论——这是中共国媒体大肆传播的——这种病毒可能是去年10月参加武汉军事世界运动会的外国运动员带入中国的。他们包括法国前世界冠军奥洛迪·克洛维尔和意大利奥运金牌得主马特奥·塔利亚里奥尔，他们都在奥运会期间因发烧休息。

Few of the athletes have been tested to find out whether they carry antibodies to Covid-19, apart from the Swedish team. Melina Westerberg, a Swedish pentathlete, has revealed that while many of her teammates were sick during the Games, they tested negative. “It was just a coincidence,” she said.

除了瑞典队之外，很少有运动员接受过检测，以确定他们是否携带了新型冠状病毒的抗体。瑞典五项运动员梅丽娜·韦斯特伯格透露，虽然她的许多队友在奥运会期间都生病了，但他们的检测都呈阴性。"那只是巧合，"她说。

It is possible that the virus did start patchily at around the time of the Military World Games. Yu Chuanhua, an epidemiology professor at Wuhan University, has told Chinese media that one man was admitted to hospital on September 29 with Covid-19-like symptoms but it is impossible now to show whether he had the virus because he died. There were two more suspected early carriers of the virus from November 14 and 21 in the city’s 47,000-strong database of cases, but they are unconfirmed.

病毒有可能是在军事世界运动会时零星地开始的。武汉大学流行病学教授余传华告诉中共国媒体，9月29日，一名男子因新型冠状病毒症状而入院，但目前无法说明他是否因为感染了新冠病毒而死亡。从11月14日到21日，该市47，000多个病例数据库中又有两个疑似早期病毒携带者，但没有证实他们是否是感染者。

Probably the first confirmed case was a 70-year-old man with Alzheimer’s disease, whose family had told researchers from Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital that his symptoms had begun on December 1.

第一个确诊病例可能是一名70岁的老年痴呆症患者，他的家人告诉武汉金银潭医院的研究人员，他的症状从12月1日就开始了。

From that point it accelerated to about 60 identifiable cases by December 20, according to government research data reported in the South China Morning Post. However, it would not be until a week later that Dr Zhang Jixian, of the Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine in Hubei province, became the first person to report a suspected outbreak to the provincial government.

据《南华早报》报道的政府研究数据显示，从12月20日起，感染病例数据激增至60例。然而，直到一个星期后，湖北省中西综合医院张继贤医生才成为第一个向省政府报告疑似疫情的人。

By then it had already spread as far as Europe, probably via regular flights from Wuhan. The virus may have been in Italy as early as December 18. The country’s National Institute of Health reported finding traces of Covid-19 in sewage water collected in Milan and Turin on that date.

到那时，病毒已经蔓延到了欧洲，可能是通过从武汉出发的定期航班（传播的）。该病毒可能早在12月18日就已在意大利。意大利的国家卫生研究院报告说，在该日米兰和都灵收集的污水中发现了新冠病毒的踪迹。

It was certainly in France, as a man called Amirouche Hammar was admitted to Jean-Verdier hospital in Paris on December 27. He had unknown respiratory pneumonia and was coughing blood. His samples later revealed Covid-19. His wife, who had a slight cough, worked at a supermarket used by shoppers leaving Charles de Gaulle airport, where there were direct flights from Wuhan.

病毒当然也已经到达了法国，因为一个叫阿米鲁什·哈马的人于12月27日住进了巴黎的让-维迪尔医院。他患有不明的呼吸道肺炎而且还咳血。他的样本后来显示出新冠病毒。他的妻子也有点咳嗽，在一家超市工作，购物者们通常会在离开戴高乐机场时使用这家超市，那里有从武汉直飞的航班。

In Wuhan itself, the first cluster of cases included traders and shoppers at the Huanan seafood market, a maze of small trading stores opening on to crowded alleys in the centre of the city. Despite its name, the market also sold meat and vegetables, and there was an exotic wildlife section in the west of the market.

在武汉，第一个群体案例包括了江南海鲜市场的商人和购物者。该市场像是一个小商铺组成的迷宫，开在市中心拥挤的小巷里。尽管它叫海鲜市场，市场也出售肉类和蔬菜，而且在市场西部有一个异国情调的野生动物部分。

On January 1 the Huanan market was closed and scientists found 33 coronavirus samples, nearly all in the area of the market where wild animals were sold.

1月1日，华南市场被关闭了，科学家发现了33个冠状病毒样本，几乎全部在野生动物销售区域。

It seemed like an open and shut case. When the results were released later that month, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported: “The results suggest that the novel coronavirus outbreak is highly relevant to the trading of wild animals.”

这似乎是一个才开始就结束的调查。当结果于当月晚些时候公布时，中共国官方媒体新华社报道："结果表明，新型冠状病毒的爆发与野生动物交易高度相关。”

However, an early study published in The Lancet made clear that of the 41 patients who contracted Covid-19 in Wuhan only 27 had been “exposed” to the market. A third had no connection to the market, including the study’s “patient zero”, who fell ill on December 1.

然而，《柳叶刀》杂志发表的早期研究表明，在武汉感染新型冠状病毒的41名患者中，只有27人曾"暴露"在（去过）市场。三分之一的人与市场没有关系，包括该研究的"零号病人"，他是在12月1日生病的。

Months later George Gao, the director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed that all the samples taken from animals at the market had tested negative for the virus and that those found had been from sewage or other environmental sources. The Chinese health authorities are now working on the theory that the market helped spread the disease but was not where it originated.

几个月后，中国疾病预防控制中心主任高先生（GeorgeGao）透露，从来自市场的动物身上采集的所有样本，病毒检测都呈阴性，而且来自污水或其他环境来源的样本也是如此。中国卫生当局正在研究这样一个理论，即市场帮助传播了这种疾病，但不是起源。

FIVE. Mapping the virus

第五章. 病毒排序

China warns world of deadly new strain

中共国警告世界这致命新(变异)株

On December 31, the day Shi returned to the WIV to begin work identifying the new coronavirus, the Chinese authorities decided it was time to tell the world there was potentially a problem.

在12月31日，也就是石回武汉病毒研究所(WIV)着手进行新型冠状病毒鉴定工作的那一天，中共国当局决定是时候向全世界表明这可能是一个问题了。

The World Health Organisation (WHO) was notified that a number of people had been struck down with pneumonia but the cause was not stated. On the same day, the Wuhan health authority put out a bland public statement reporting 27 cases of flu-like infection and urged people to seek medical attention if they fell ill. Neither statement indicated that the new illness could be transmitted between humans or that the likely source was already known: a coronavirus.

世界卫生组织（WHO）被告知说，许多人被不明原因肺炎严重感染。当天，武汉市卫生部门发布了一份温和的公开声明，报导了27例似流感感染病例，并告诉人们如感不适及早就医。两个声明均未表明新疾病可能在人与人之间传播以及疾病源头已知：是一种冠状病毒。

By the second week in January, desperate scenes were unfolding at Wuhan hospitals. Hopelessly ill-prepared and ill-equipped staff were forced to make life-and-death calls about who they could treat. Within a few days, the lack of beds, equipment and staff made the decisions for them.

到了一月份的第二周，武汉医院里出现了绝望的情景。准备不足和装备不足的(医护)人员绝望地被迫做着谁能或谁不能接受治疗这种生死攸关的决定。几天之内，因病床，设备和人员的不足自动为他们做了决定。

Shi’s team managed to identify five cases of the coronavirus from samples taken from patients at Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital using a technique to amplify the virus’s genetic material. The samples were sent to another lab, which completed the whole genomic sequence.

石的队伍使用病毒遗传物质的扩增技术，从武汉金银潭医院患者的样本中，鉴定出五例冠状病毒。这些样品被送到另一个实验室，完成了整个基因组序列的检测。

However, the sequence would not be passed to the WHO until January 12 and China would not admit there had been human-to-human transmission until January 20, despite sitting on evidence the virus had been passed to medics.

然而，该(病毒)序列直到了1月12日才递交给世界卫生组织。而且，中共国直到1月20日才承认有人际传播的存在，尽管有证据表明已有医务人员感染了该病毒。

One of Shi’s other urgent tasks was to check through her laboratory’s records to see if any errors, particularly with disposal of hazardous materials, could have caused a leak from the premises.

石的另一项紧迫任务之一是检查实验室记录，特别是在清除有害物质方面，以便查看是否有任何错误导致了实验室泄漏。

She spoke of her relief to discover that the sequences for the new virus were not an exact match with the samples her team had brought back from the bat caves. “That really took a load off my mind,” she told the Scientific American, “I had not slept a wink for days.”

她说，当她发现这种新病毒的序列与她的团队从蝙蝠洞带回来的样品不完全匹配时感到一块石头落了地。她对《科学美国人》杂志说：“这真的让我如释重负。我已经好几天没睡觉了。”

SIX. RaTG13

第六章. RaTG13

From bat cave to lab

从蝙蝠洞到实验室

She then set about writing a paper describing the new coronavirus to the world for the first time. Published in Nature on February 3 and entitled “A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin”, the document was groundbreaking.

随后，她开始着手撰写一篇首次向全世界描述这种新型冠状病毒的论文。该开拓性的文章于2月3日在《自然》杂志上发表，题为《一个可能是由蝙蝠起源的新冠病毒所引发的肺炎暴发》。

It set out a full genomic description of the Covid-19 virus and revealed that the WIV had in storage the closest known relative of the virus, which it had taken from a bat. The sample was named RaTG13. According to the paper, it is a 96.2% match to the Covid-19 virus and they share a common lineage distinct from other Sars-type coronaviruses. The paper concludes that this close likeness “provides evidence” that Covid-19 “may have originated in bats”.

文章中列出了新冠病毒的完整基因组描述，并揭示了武汉病毒研究所储存有从蝙蝠身上获取的最接近该病毒的“亲戚”。该样品被命名为RaTG13。根据该论文，它与新冠病毒的匹配率为96.2％，并且它们具有不同于其他SARS(非典)型冠状病毒的共同谱系。该论文的结论是，这种相似之处“提供了证据”证明新冠病毒“可能起源于蝙蝠”。

In other words, RaTG13 was the biggest lead available as to the origin of Covid-19. It was therefore surprising that the paper gave only scant detail about the history of the virus sample, stating merely that it was taken from a Rhinolophus affinis bat in Yunnan province in 2013 — hence the “Ra” and the 13.

换句话说，就新冠病毒的起源而言，RaTG13是最重大的线索。因此，令人惊讶的是，该论文提供了非常少有关病毒样本的历史细节，仅说明该病毒样本是从2013年云南省的一种犀牛蝙蝠中提取的，因此命名为“ Ra (Rhinolophus affinis)”和13 (2013)。

Inquiries have established, however, that RaTG13 is almost certainly the coronavirus discovered in the abandoned mine in 2013, which had been named RaBtCoV/4991 in the institute’s earlier scientific paper. For some reason, Shi and her team appear to have renamed it.

然而，已经确定的是，RaTG13几乎可以肯定是2013年在废弃矿山中发现的冠状病毒，在研究所早先的科学论文中已将其命名为RaBtCoV / 4991。由于某种原因，石和她的团队似乎又将其重新命了名。

The clearest evidence is in a database of bat viruses published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences — the parent body of the WIV — which lists RaTG13 and the mine sample as the same entity. It says it was discovered on July 24, 2013, as part of a collection of coronaviruses that were described in the 2016 paper on the abandoned mine.

最明确的证据是由中国科学院（武汉病毒研究所的主属机构）发布的蝙蝠病毒数据库，其中列出了RaTG13和矿场样品是同一实体。它说病毒是在2013年7月24日发现的，是在2016年关于废弃矿山的论文中所描述的冠状病毒集锦的一部分。

In fact, researchers in India and Austria have compared the partial genome of the mine sample that was published in the 2016 paper and found it is a 100% match with the same sequence for RaTG13. The same partial sequence for the mine sample is a 98.7% match with the Covid-19 virus.

实际上，印度和奥地利的研究人员比较了2016年论文中发表的矿山样品的部分基因组，发现它与RaTG13的相同序列100％匹配，而此相同部分的矿山样品序列与新冠病毒病毒的匹配率为98.7％。

Peter Daszak, a close collaborator with the Wuhan institute, who has worked with Shi’s team hunting down viruses for 15 years, has confirmed to The Sunday Times that RaTG13 was the sample found in the mine. He said there was no significance in the renaming. “The conspiracy folks are saying there’s something suspicious about the change in name, but the world has changed in six years — the coding system has changed,” he said.

与武汉研究所有紧密合作并与石的团队研究病毒已有15年的合作经验的彼得·达扎克（Peter Daszak），已向《星期日泰晤士报》证实，RaTG13是该矿中发现的样本。他说，重新命名没有任何意义。他说：“阴谋家们对名字的改变保持怀疑，但是六年来世界已经发生了许多变化，编码系统也发生了改变。”

He recalled: “It was just one of the 16,000 bats we sampled. It was a faecal sample, we put it in a tube, put it in liquid nitrogen, took it back to the lab. We sequenced a short fragment.”

他回忆说：“这只是我们采样的16,000只蝙蝠之一。这是个粪便样品，我们将其放入试管中，置于液氮中，然后送回实验室。我们测序了一个短片段。”

In 2013 the Wuhan team had run the sample through a polymerase chain reaction process to amplify the amount of genetic material so it could be studied, Daszak said. But it did no more work on it until the Covid-19 outbreak because it had not been a close match to Sars.

达扎克(Daszak)说，2013年，武汉团队通过聚合酶链反应过程对样品进行了处理，以扩增遗传物质的数量，方便对其进行研究。但是直到新冠病毒爆发之前，它并没有做更多的工作，因为它与SARS病毒并不相似。

Other scientists find the initial indifference about a new strain of the coronavirus hard to understand. Nikolai Petrovsky, professor of medicine at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, said it was “simply not credible” that the WIV would have failed to carry out any further analysis on RaBtCoV/4991, especially as it had been linked to the deaths of three miners.

其他科学家则发现他们对这新型的冠状病毒毒株最初的冷漠态度令人费解。南澳大利亚州阿德莱德弗林德斯大学医学教授尼古拉·彼得罗夫斯基说， 武汉病毒研究室竟未能对RaBtCoV / 4991进行任何进一步的分析“根本不可信”，尤其是它与三个矿工的死亡有关。

“If you really thought you had a novel virus that had caused an outbreak that killed humans then there is nothing you wouldn’t do — given that was their whole reason for being [there] — to get to the bottom of that, even if that meant exhausting the sample and then going back to get more,” he said.

他说，“如果您真的认为这是由一种新型病毒所引起的爆发而杀死人类的，考虑到这就是他们（石和她的团队）去矿山的意义，那么您一定会尽力追根究底的 - 即使这意味着要用尽全部样品，以及再返回(矿山)取得更多(的样本)。”

“I would expect people to be as clear as they can be about the history of the isolates of their sequencing,” said Professor Wendy Barclay, head of Imperial College London’s infectious disease department and a member of the UK government’s Sage advisory committee. “Most of us would have reported the entire history of the isolate, [back] to where all that came from, at the time.”

伦敦帝国理工学院传染病系主任，英国政府鼠尾草(Sage)咨询委员会成员的温迪·巴克莱教授说：“我希望人们尽可能清楚地了解分离株的测序历史。我们大多数都会在第一时间报告分离株的全部来龙去脉。”

According to Daszak, the mine sample had been stored in Wuhan for six years. Its scientists “went back to that sample in 2020, in early January or maybe even at the end of last year, I don’t know. They tried to get full genome sequencing, which is important to find out the whole diversity of the viral genome.”

据达扎克(Daszak)说，该矿山的样品已经在武汉保存了六年。我不清楚这些科学家(石的团队)“是在2020年一月初，还是在去年底，回到了那个样本区。他们试图获得完整的基因组测序，这对于找出病毒基因组的整体多样性非常重要。”

However, after sequencing the full genome for RaTG13 the lab’s sample of the virus disintegrated, he said. “I think they tried to culture it but they were unable to, so that sample, I think, has gone.”

他说，在对RaTG13的全基因组进行测序后，实验室的病毒样本被解体了。 “我认为他们试图对其进行培养，但他们未能做到这一点，所以我认为该样本已经消失了。”

In recent weeks, academics are said to have written to Nature asking for the WIV to write an erratum clarifying the sample’s provenance, but the Chinese lab has maintained a stony silence. A spokesman for Nature said: “Concerns relating to this paper have been brought to Nature’s attention and are being considered at the moment. We cannot comment further at this time.”

据说最近几周，有学者写信给《自然》杂志，要求武汉病毒研究所写一个勘误表来阐明样品的来源，但中共国实验室一直保持沉默。 《自然》杂志发言人说：“与本文有关的问题已引起《自然》杂志的注意，目前正在审议中。我们目前无法发表进一步评论。”

SEVEN. Ski holidays

第七章. 滑雪假期

The contagion spread through Europe

这感染蔓延全欧洲

The director of the WIV, Wang Yanyi, gave an interview in May in which she described suggestions that Covid-19 might have leaked from the lab as “pure fabrication”. She said that the institute managed to sequence the genome of RaTG13 but had not been able to return it to a live virus. “Thus, there is no possibility of us leaking RaTG13,” she said.

武汉病毒研究所的负责人王延义在5月份接受采访时，描述了新冠病毒可能从实验室泄漏的说词是“纯虚造”的。她说，该研究所已设法完成RaTG13的基因组测序，但未能将其恢复活性。 “因此，我们是不可能泄漏RaTG13病毒的。”

Shi’s interview with the Scientific American mentions the discovery of a coronavirus that 96% matches the Covid-19 virus, and has a reference to the miners dying in a cave she investigated. However, the two things are not linked and Shi downplays the significance of the miners’ deaths by claiming they succumbed to a fungus.

石在接受《科学美国人》采访时提到，发现了一种冠状病毒，它与新冠病毒的相似度为96％，并且她还提到了她研究死亡于洞穴中的矿工一事。但是，这两件事并没有被联系在一起，而且石声称矿工死于霉菌感染，试图将其重要性淡化。

Experts consulted by this newspaper thought it was significant the men had tested positive for antibodies against Sars. Professor Martin Hibberd, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the antibodies provided “a good clue” that the cause of death was “a proper coronavirus”, which “most likely” was Sars-related.

该报纸咨询的专家认为，这些人的SARS抗体检测呈阳性，这点很重要。伦敦卫生与热带医学学院新兴传染病教授马丁·希伯德教授说，这些抗体“提供了一个很好的线索”，表明死亡原因是“冠状病毒本身”，且“很可能”与SARS病毒有关。

“[RaTG13] is so similar to all the other Sars coronaviruses and so I’d imagine all of that family can cause similar disease, so it makes good sense to me that if the miners caught it they would end up with something that looks similar.”

“ [RaTG13]与所有其他SARS冠状病毒非常相似，因此我想所有那个家族都可能引起相似的疾病，所以对我来说很有意义的是，如果矿工们感染了这种病毒，最终将会得到相似的征状。”

On January 23 Wuhan became the first city in the world to go into lockdown and it would later suffer nearly 4,000 deaths, according to official figures that some people believe are too low.

1月23日，武汉成为世界上第一个被封锁的城市，后来有将近4,000人死亡。这是官方数据显示，有人认为这些数字太低了。

Britain’s first official cases — a Chinese student studying in York and a relative — would not emerge for another week, but it is highly likely the virus was already in the country. There were 901 flights from China to the UK between December 1, when the first known patient fell ill, and January 24. Of those, 23 flights brought thousands of passengers directly from Wuhan to Heathrow.

英国首例官方病例是一名在约克郡学习的中共国学生和他的一名亲戚。官方开始以为至少还有一周才会有病例出现，但很可能该病毒早已经在英国了。从12月1日首例已知患者到1月24日，从中共国到英国共有901班航班。其中23班航班直接将数千名乘客从武汉带到希思罗(Heathrow, London)机场。

There is also evidence that Britons were bringing back the virus from Europe. Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King’s College London, who runs the Covid Symptom Study app, says he was contacted by up to 500 people who had returned to the UK between Christmas and January with symptoms.

也有证据表明英国人是从欧洲带回该病毒的。伦敦国王学院的流行病学家Tim Spector教授使用新冠病毒症状研究应用程序分析。他说，有多达500个有症状的人与他取得了联系，他们都是在圣诞节和1月间返回英国的。

Many were returning from ski resorts, notably in Austria. In April, 42% of residents in the town of Ischgl were found to have antibodies. “I was interested in the Austrian surveys done in Tyrol because I was quite struck by the stories of all the people that came back from Austrian ski holidays in January, predominantly, feeling ill. It was very convincing because a lot of the stories were the same from different people,” he said.

许多人是从滑雪胜地返回的，特别是从奥地利。 4月，在伊施格尔（Ischgl）镇，有42％的居民被发现有抗体。他说，“我对奥地利在蒂罗尔进行的调查很感兴趣，因为我对一月份从奥地利滑雪度假回来的大多数人都感到不适这件事感到震惊。这是非常有说服力的，因为很多人的情况都是相同的。”

EIGHT. The investigation

第八章. 调查

How did this happen?

这一切是怎么发生的？

The origin of Covid-19 is one of the most pressing questions facing humanity. Scientists worldwide are trying to understand how it evolved, which could help stop such a crisis happening again.

Covid-19的起源是人类面临的最紧迫的问题之一。 世界各地的科学家都在试图了解它是如何演变的，这可能会有助于制止这种危机再次发生。

The suggestion that well-intentioned scientists may have introduced Covid-19 to their own city is vehemently denied by the WIV, and its work on the origin of the virus has become an x-rated topic in China. Its leadership has taken strict control of new studies and information about where the virus may have come from.

武汉病毒研究所强烈否认了是善意的科学家把病毒带到了他们自己的城市的这种建议，它在病毒的起源上的研究工作也成为了限制级的话题。病毒研究所的领导人对关于病毒来源的新研究和信息采取了严格的控制

A directive from the education ministry’s science and technology department in the spring stipulated that such work had to be read by a taskforce directly under the state council — comprising China’s president, Xi Jinping, and top ministers — before it can be published.

今年春季教育部科学技术部门发布的一项指令中规定，此类工作必须先由国务院直属工作组（包括中国国家主席习近平和最高部长）阅读，然后才能公布。

The secrecy has only increased as the origin of Covid-19 has become politicised as a weapon of aggressive foreign policy. President Donald Trump has described the virus as a “kung flu” and has delighted in claiming it is a Chinese disease. Scientists are dismayed and fear China will retreat further into its shell.

当Covid-19的起源被政治化为侵略性外交政策的武器时，对它的保密有所增加。川普总统将这种病毒描述为“功夫流感”，并乐意称它是一种中共国疾病。科学家们为此感到沮丧，他们害怕中国会进一步退缩。

Professor Richard Ebright, of Rutgers University’s Waksman Institute of Microbiology in New Jersey, believes there is now less than a 50:50 chance China will allow a transparent investigation into the origin of the pandemic. “That’s unfortunate,” he said. “And that largely reflects the poor handling of the matter by the US president, who chose to push this in a way that made it unlikely that there could be an open investigation.”

新泽西州罗格斯大学瓦克斯曼微生物研究所的理查德·埃布赖特教授认为，现在中共国会允许对大瘟疫的起源进行透明调查的机会不到50%。 “这很不幸，”他说。 “但这在很大程度上反映了美国总统对此事的处理不善。美国总统选择以这样一种方式推动此事，使得公开调查变得不可能。”

Over the next few days, WHO scientists will be allowed to fly into China to begin an investigation into the origins of the virus after two months of negotiations. Many experts such as Daszak believe the source of the virus will be found in a bat in the south of China.

经过了2个月的交涉，在接下来的几天世卫组织科学家将被允许飞往中国开始对病毒的起源进行调查。达扎克（Daszak）等许多专家认为病毒的来源将在中国南部的一只蝙蝠中找到。

“It didn’t emerge in the market, it emerged somewhere else,” said Daszak. He said the “best guess right now” is that the virus started within a “cluster” on the Chinese border that includes the area where RaTG13 was found and an area just south of the mineshaft, where another bat pathogen with a 93% likeness to Covid-19 was discovered recently.

达扎克说：“它（蝙蝠）没有出现在市场上，而是出现在其他地方。” 他说，“目前最好的猜测”是该病毒始于中国边境的一个“ 聚集区域”，该区域群包含了发现RaTG13的区域和矿井以南的区域，在那里最近刚刚发现了另一种蝙蝠病毒，它与Covid-19相似度为93％。

As for how the virus travelled to Wuhan, Daszak said: “Fair assumption is that it spilt into animals in southern China and was then shipped in, via infected people, or animals associated with trade, to Wuhan.”

关于病毒如何传播到武汉，达扎克说：“合理的假设是，它在中共国南方进入了动物体内，然后通过感染的人或与动物参与的相关商业被运输进入到武汉。”

But how could such an infectious virus avoid causing a single noticeable outbreak during the 1,000-mile journey from Yunnan to the city?

但是从云南到武汉市1000公里的路程中，这样有传染性的病毒怎么做到避免引起一次让人注意的爆发的呢？

Hibberd said it was feasible the virus could have travelled in an animal such as a pangolin, which passed it to a human wildlife trader when it was being transported for sale in the market. “Maybe a young guy moves a pangolin and sold it on and may have had a mild infection but didn’t have any disease,” he said. “It’s not impossible for that scenario to happen.”

希伯德说，病毒的传播是因为从事野生动物买卖的人把穿山甲这样的动物运送进市场出售时，他受到了感染，这是可能的。他说：“也许一个小伙子拿了一个穿山甲卖掉了，也许轻微感染但没有生病。这种情况并非不可能发生。”

On the other hand, Hibberd believes it is possible the virus could have been brought back by one of the scientists, who were frequent travellers between the caves and Wuhan. “If you imagine these researchers who probably did this are students — who are probably quite young — it’s entirely possible that a researcher might become infected through the study of bats.”

另一方面，希伯德相信，这种病毒很可能是由其中一位经常在云南山洞和武汉之间往返的科学家带回的。 “如果您想象一下，做研究的可能是学生-可能还很年轻-完全有可能一个研究员因为研究蝙蝠而被感染了。”

The WIV was not the only body of scientists from the city delving into virus-laden caves. On December 10 last year a Chinese state media outlet published an extraordinary video lionising the bravery of a researcher called Tian Junhua, who is said to have caught 10,000 bats in studies for Wuhan’s disease control centre.

武汉病毒研究所并不是该市唯一一个对充满病毒的洞穴进行深入研究的科学家团体。 去年12月10日，中国一家国有媒体发布了一段特殊的视频，讽刺了名叫田俊华的研究人员的英勇行为。据说田俊华为武汉市疾病控制中心的研究中捉了10,000头蝙蝠。

Tian admitted that he knew little about bats when he first started visiting the caves eight years ago, and once had to isolate himself for 14 days after being showered with bat urine while wearing inadequate protection. On occasions bat blood spilt onto his hands but he says he has never been infected.

田承认，八年前他刚开始探访洞穴时，对蝙蝠一无所知，曾有一次在被蝙蝠尿淋在身上，当时没有足够的防护衣服他只好自我隔离了14天。有时蝙蝠的血液会粘到他的手上，但他说他从未被感染过。

The young researcher aroused suspicion because one of the offices of the disease control centre is about 300 yards from the Huanan seafood market. He has refused to talk to reporters, but his friends have firmly denied that he was “patient zero”.

这位年轻的研究人员引起了人们的怀疑，因为疾病控制中心的其中一个办公室距离华南海鲜市场只有约300码。 他拒绝与记者交谈，但他的朋友们坚决否认了他是“零号病人”。

The final and trickiest question for the WHO inspectors is whether the virus might have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. Is it possible, for example, that RaTG13 or a similar virus turned into Covid-19 and then leaked into the population after infecting one of the scientists at the Wuhan institute?

对于世卫组织调查人员来说，最终也是最棘手的问题是该病毒是否可能从武汉的实验室中逃出的。 例如，是否有可能RaTG13或类似病毒在变成Covid-19后感染了武汉研究所的一名科学家，然后泄漏到人群中？

This seriously divides the experts. The Australian virologist Edward Holmes has estimated that RaTG13 would take up to 50 years to evolve the extra 4% that would make it a 100% match with the Covid-19 virus. Hibberd is slightly less conservative and believes it might take less than 20 years to morph naturally into the virus driving the current pandemic.

专家们在病毒起源问题上有严重的分歧。 澳大利亚病毒学家爱德华·霍姆斯（Edward Holmes）估计，RaTG13可能需要长达50年的时间才能进化出额外的4％，使其与Covid-19病毒的匹配率达到100％。 希伯德保守程度略低一些，他认为，自然地变化成为引发当前大瘟疫的病毒可能需要不到20年的时间。

But others say such arguments are based on the assumption the virus develops at a constant rate, along lines that have been monitored over the past six months. “That is not a valid assumption,” said Ebright. “When a virus changes hosts and adapts to a new host the rate of evolutionary change is much higher. And so it is possible that RaTG13, particularly if it entered humans prior to November 2019, may have undergone adaptation in humans at a rate that would allow it to give rise to Sars-Cov-2. I think that is a distinct possibility.”

但其他的人却说这些争论是基于这样一个假设，即病毒是以恒定速率发展的，这与过去六个月来进行的监测类似。 埃布赖特说：“这不是一个正确的假设。” 当病毒改变宿主并适应新宿主时，进化变化的速率会更高。 因此，RaTG13（特别是如果它在2019年11月之前进入人体）可能已经在人体内演变到适应速率以使其能够产生Sars-Cov-2。 我认为这是一种明显的可能性。”

Ebright believes an even more controversial theory should not be ruled out. “It also, of course, is a distinct possibility that work done in the laboratory on RaTG13 may have resulted in artificial in-laboratory adaptation that erased those three to five decades of evolutionary distance.”

埃布赖特认为，不应把另一个更具争议性的理论排除在外。 “当然，在实验室中对RaTG13所做的工作也可能导致病毒在实验室内完成了人工演变，从而消除了这三到五十年的进化距离，这是一种明显的可能性。”

It is a view Hibberd does not believe is possible. “Sars-Cov-2 and RaTG13 are not the same virus and I don’t think you can easily manipulate one into the other. It seems exceptionally difficult,” he said.

但希伯德认为这个观点是不可能的。他说“ Sars-Cov-2和RaTG13是不一样的病毒，我认为您不能轻易地将一个病毒变成另一个。这似乎是异常困难的”。

Ebright alleges, however, that the type of work required to create Covid-19 from RaTG13 was “identical” to work the laboratory had done in the past. “The very same techniques, the very same experimental strategies using RaTG13 as the starting point, would yield a virus essentially identical to Sars-Cov-2.”

然而，埃布赖特（Ebright）声称，用RaTG13制造Covid-19所需的工作类型与过去在实验室所做的工作“完全一样”。 “使用以RaTG13作为起点的相同技术，相同实验策略可以产生与Sars-Cov-2基本相同的病毒。”

The Sunday Times put a series of questions to the WIV. They included why it had failed for months to acknowledge the closest match to the Covid-19 virus was found in a mine where people had died from a coronavirus-like illness. The questions were met with silence.

《星期日泰晤士报》向武汉病毒研究所提出了一系列问题。 问题包括了为什么几个月以来实验室没有承认与冠状病毒COVID-19最接近的病毒曾在一个矿井中被发现，而有人因去过那个矿井后感染一种和冠状病毒相似的病毒而丧命。我们的问询换来的是武汉病毒研究所的沉默。

编辑 【喜马拉雅战鹰团】