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why don't you describe for me as vividly as you can
麻烦您尽可能详尽得谈一谈
what it is you're worried about, what it is that nightmare scenario looks like?
你担心的问题，或者说在你看来，所谓的噩梦性的灾难长什么样子？
Fortunately, there's very few things and most of them are very low probability
幸运的是，大型灾难并不多，而且发生的概率通常较低
some big volcanic explosion, A giant earthquake, asteroid
比如大型火山爆发，大型地震，行星碰撞
At least in the nuclear case, you gotta say we take it quite seriously.
至少在核武器这个事情上，大家的态度是很谨慎的
We budget a lot of money, have a lot of people who think about nuclear deterrence,
我们有大规模的预算，还有很多人在考虑核威慑的问题
I'm very glad that works being done
我很高兴这方面的工作已经有人在做了
and I rate the chance of a nuclear war in my lifetime has being fairly low.
而且，我觉得在我这辈子发生核战的概率不大
I rate the chance of a widespread epidemic far worse than Ebola in my lifetime as well over 50 percent.
在我看来，我这辈子，有50%以上的概率发生比埃博拉严重得多的大规模流行病
If we look at the 20th Century, and we look at the death chart of the 20th Century,
回头看一看二十世纪，看一看上个世纪的死亡统计表
I think everybody would say oh yeah there must be a spike from World War I
我想，大家肯定都会说，是的，一战必须是一个死亡人数的峰值
and you know sure enough there it is like 25 million
肯定有比如2500万这样一个峰值
and there must be a big spike for World War II, and there it is, like 65 million
二战也必须是一个峰值，死亡人数我们假定是6500万
but then you'll see this other spike that is as large as World War II right after World War I
你还会看到，紧接着一战就有一个像二战那样的峰值
and most people, a lot of people say what?
大部分人，很多人肯定都会说，“什么？
Wait a minute, what was that?
等一下，那又是什么？”
There's two kinds of flus:
流感有两种
There's flus that spread between humans very effectively
一种是人传人速度非常快的流感
and there's flus that kill lots of people.
另一种是死亡率超高的流感
And those two properties have only been combined...into a widespread flu once in history.
这两种特性历史上仅有一次结合并造成大规模流感的案例
That is Spanish Flu.
那就是西班牙流感
We have no idea where it came from,
这场流感的来源至今无人知晓
it's called the Spanish flu because the Spanish press was the freest,
之所以叫“西班牙流感”是因为西班牙媒体比较自由
they were the first to talk openly about it.
他们是第一个公开此信息的媒体
and so in the annals of epidemic history that's the big event.
所以西班牙流感就成了流行病史上一次不可忽视的流感
I funded a disease modeling group that uses computer simulation
我投资了一个用电脑仿真检测流行病的建模小组
and that work has been phenomenal in helping us target our polio eradication resources
他们在根除小儿麻痹症工作上，
which parts of Nigeria should we work harder on?
以及在埃博拉病毒流行期间确定尼日尼亚境内重点防范区域上帮了大忙
And it's very natural if you have a group like that to say hey look at something like the Spanish flu in the modern day.
试想一下，现代社会发生一场西班牙流感那样的流感会怎么样
Health systems are far better and so you'd think, hey that wouldn't be very bad.
你可能会觉得，现在的医疗系统先进多了，结果应该不会那么惨，这种反应并不奇怪
Well, we tried it, and there are some assumptions we had to make,
好吧，我们用计算机模拟了这种情况——这类假设我们必须要做——
but what we showed is that the force of infection,
我们发现，其感染力
because modern transport which, compared to 1918, is over fifty times as great,
因为现在的交通比起1918年要先进50倍以上
and so if you get something like the flu
所以如果真的出现西班牙流感那样的病毒
and you look at that map of how within days
从这个地图上，我们能看到，几天之内
it's basically in all urban centers of the entire globe
病毒就会传播到世界各地的城市中心
That is very, uh, eye-opening.
这一模拟让我们大跌眼镜
that didn't happen with Spanish flu in the past.
西班牙流感时期并没出现这种情况
The opportunity to do more than just let it run its course is really only in the last decade
面对这种情况，除了眼睁睁看着它爆发，我们真正能够做点什么才是十年前的事情
basically when you talk about drugs, you can talk about small molecules
说到抗流感病毒的药物，基本上就是那些小分子
or you can talk about these complex biological protein like things
或是复杂一点的生物蛋白之类的东西
which is a subclass called antibodies
而生物蛋白只是一种所谓“抗体”的子类
Antibodies are the molecules the immune system naturally builds to attack disease
抗体是人体免疫系统自动分泌来对抗疾病的分子
Today, the idea that somebody says oh here's an antibody, make a lot of it
如今，所谓的“这是抗体，拿去多生产一些
made it very quickly, that's right on the cutting edge.
要快”已经是我们最先进的技术了
and the Ebola epidemic showed me that we're not ready for a serious epidemic.
然而，埃博拉流感告诉我，我们还远远没有准备好面对一场大型的，
An epidemic that would be more infectious and would spread faster than Ebola did.
一场比埃博拉感染能力还要强，传播速度还要快的流感
This is the greatest risk of a huge tragedy.
这恰恰是面对一场巨型灾难时最大的风险
This is the most likely thing by far to kill over 10 million excess people in a year.
也是目前最可能发生的，死亡人数能够达到一年1000多万级别的灾难
We don't need to invest nearly what we do in military preparedness.
针对这种流感，我们并不需要投资备战那么多钱
this is something where less than a billion a year on R&D,
大型流感所需的年预算还不到10亿，包括研发、
medical surveillance, on standby personnel, cross-training the military
医疗监护、替补工作人员的配备以及
so they can play a role in terms of all the logistics here.
为了让工作人员能够在疫情爆发后随时随地派上用场进行的交叉军事训练
This can be done and we may not get many more warnings like this one
这个工作我们是可以做到的，而且，可能并不会有更多类似今天这样一个警告
to to say okay it's a pretty modest investment to avoid something that,
说，好吧，对阻止真正能够——从人类的处境来看——
really, in terms of the human condition, would be a gigantic setback.
造成严重历史倒退的灾难来说，这点儿资金其实非常有限
