2014年经济学人 莱克星顿 埃博拉恐慌者

Lexington

The Ebola alarmists

Stoking panic will not help America fight Ebola

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. Apparently¹ the Hippocratic oath does not cover panic-mongering: Dr Paul has popped up on talk-radio shows, alleging² 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”.

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 isolated⁴ and is not yet known to have infected anyone else.

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 Ted³ 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 concessions⁵ 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).

Dr Paul is, to date, alone in suggesting that—in deploying⁶ 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?”

Government doctors are working to calm the public, notably⁷ 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 enquiring⁸ 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.

To be fair, Democrats⁹ 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 sequester¹⁰, 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.

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.

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 isolation¹¹ from the world; or (counter-intuitively) is it less risky¹² 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 painstaking¹³ health-checks at airports and hospitals?

That sort of argument will always expose philosophical¹⁴ differences. Reasonable people will often disagree: some instinctively¹⁵ 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 partisan¹⁶ 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.

Conspiracy¹⁷ theories go viral

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, conspiracies¹⁸ lurk¹⁹, with technocrats²⁰ 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 heed²¹ what he sniffily calls “the experts”.

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.

1 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

2 alleging   

断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• His reputation was blemished by a newspaper article alleging he'd evaded his taxes. 由于报上一篇文章声称他曾逃税，他的名誉受到损害。
• This our Peeress declined as unnecessary, alleging that her cousin Thornhill's recommendation would be sufficient. 那位贵人不肯，还说不必，只要有她老表唐希尔保荐就够了。

3 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

4 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

5 concessions   

n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权

参考例句：

• The firm will be forced to make concessions if it wants to avoid a strike. 要想避免罢工，公司将不得不作出一些让步。
• The concessions did little to placate the students. 让步根本未能平息学生的愤怒。

6 deploying   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的现在分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Provides support for developing and deploying distributed, component-based applications. 为开发和部署基于组件的分布式应用程序提供支持。
• Advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand are all available when deploying your application. 在部署应用程序时提供公布、发布、修复和即需即装功能。

7 notably   

adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地

参考例句：

• Many students were absent,notably the monitor.许多学生缺席，特别是连班长也没来。
• A notably short,silver-haired man,he plays basketball with his staff several times a week.他个子明显较为矮小，一头银发，每周都会和他的员工一起打几次篮球。

8 enquiring   

a.爱打听的，显得好奇的

参考例句：

• a child with an enquiring mind 有好奇心的孩子
• Paul darted at her sharp enquiring glances. 她的目光敏锐好奇，保罗飞快地朝她瞥了一眼。

9 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 sequester   

vt.使退隐，使隔绝

参考例句：

• Everything he owned was sequestered.他的所有财产都被扣押了。
• This jury is expected to be sequestered for at least two months.预计这个陪审团将至少被隔离两个月。

11 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

12 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

13 painstaking   

adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的

参考例句：

• She is not very clever but she is painstaking.她并不很聪明，但肯下苦功夫。
• Through years of our painstaking efforts,we have at last achieved what we have today.大家经过多少年的努力，才取得今天的成绩。

14 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

15 instinctively   

adv.本能地

参考例句：

• As he leaned towards her she instinctively recoiled. 他向她靠近，她本能地往后缩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He knew instinctively where he would find her. 他本能地知道在哪儿能找到她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 partisan   

adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒

参考例句：

• In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中，他们忘掉一切党派之争。
• The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。

17 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

18 conspiracies   

n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was still alive and hatching his conspiracies. 他还活着，策划着阴谋诡计。 来自辞典例句
• It appeared that they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very moment of their release. 看上去他们刚给释放，立刻开始新一轮的阴谋活动。 来自英汉文学

19 lurk   

n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏

参考例句：

• Dangers lurk in the path of wilderness.在这条荒野的小路上隐伏着危险。
• He thought he saw someone lurking above the chamber during the address.他觉得自己看见有人在演讲时潜藏在会议厅顶上。

20 technocrats   

n.技术专家，专家政治论者( technocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Few business barons remained. They were replaced by "technocrats," who became the heads of corporations. 企业巨头所剩无几，大多已被“技术专家”所代替，这些人成了公司的领导。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• However, bankers called the technocrats' bluff and proceeded to lend with gusto. 但是，银行家们称技术专家官员不过在虚张声势，并且还会乐观的继续借贷业务。 来自互联网

21 heed   

v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心

参考例句：

• You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
• For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。