原文：https://vegnews.com/2020/4/an-md-s-take-on-coronavirus-carnivores-and-why-this-might-not-be-our-last-wake-up-call

注：译文谨供参考。

AN MD’S TAKE ON CORONAVIRUS, CARNIVORES, AND WHY THIS MIGHT NOT BE OUR LAST WAKE-UP CALL

一名医学博士对冠状病毒和食肉兽的看法以及为什么警钟可能还会再次敲响

A vegan family physician says zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 should be feared—but our best defense is to stop eating animals.

一名身为纯素食者的家庭医生（医学博士）现身说法：像COVID-19（2019冠状病毒病）这样的人畜共通传染病纵然凶猛可怕，但是我们有最佳的防御手段──停止食用一切动物。

by SHANTALA SONNAD

作者：SHANTALA SONNAD

Our current catastrophic viral outbreak, COVID-19, should not have happened. As a society, we have not learned from our mistakes, and as a result, we keep making the same ones. We should have seen this coming. Previous pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS, ebola, swine flu, and bird flu, can all be evidentially traced back to wildlife trafficking and widespread animal consumption. We know coronavirus likely originated from a “wet market” in China—which sells fresh meat, fish, and produce—but no one person or country is to blame. There are thousands of wet markets in the United States alone. Until these cramped, disease-ridden markets are banned, animals will continue to suffer, and inevitably, so will we.

目前全世界的灾难性病毒爆发（COVID-19）本来不应该发生。我们整个社会都未能从错误中吸取教训，所以我们一而再三地重蹈覆辙。我们应当可以预见这次全球大灾难的到来。以往出现的各种大流行性疾病（pandemic），诸如艾滋病毒/艾滋病（HIV/AIDS）、埃博拉（Ebola）、猪流感（swine flu）、禽流感（bird flu）、等等，全都可以证据确凿地追溯到罪魁祸首：野生动物交易和大量动物消费。我们了解到，此次爆发的冠状病毒可能来源于中国境内一个售卖新鲜肉类、鱼类和农产品的“湿货市场”（wet market），但是迄今没有哪个人或国家被追责。仅在美国就有数千个湿货市场。除非全面取缔这些狭窄脏乱、疾病盛行的市场，否则动物将继续饱受痛苦折磨，而人类也无法摆脱同样的悲惨命运。

Our meaty habits

嗜肉恶习

The average carnivore consumes 70 to 220 pounds of meat per year. Numerous countries, including our own, house animals in horrific unsanitary conditions, producing waste flush with residues of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, pathogens, and numerous other contaminants in order to satisfy these meaty demands. It is the perfect cocktail for novel, never-seen-before viruses that are much smarter than us, hopping from animals to humans, mutating, growing, learning, and jumping back to the tiger at the Bronx Zoo. These diseases are deadly because we have no pre-existing immunity against them. To prevent the flu, we get a flu shot. To avoid tetanus, we get a tetanus shot. There is no “we eat animals so please save us” shot.

普通“食肉兽”（肉食者）每年吃掉70到220磅肉类。为了满足全世界这样庞大的肉食需求，包括我们美国在内的众多国家在极其恶劣的卫生条件下圈养动物，排放出包含有各种耐抗生素细菌（antibiotic-resistant bacteria）、病原体以及无数污染物的大量污水。这些污水横流正是滋生前所未见的新型病毒的完美温床。新型病毒比人类聪明狡猾得多，通过动物迅速传染给人类，不断变异、增长、学习（进化），然后再窜回到纽约布朗克斯动物园（Bronx Zoo）内的老虎身上。这些病毒疾病是致命性的，因为人类不存在抵御它们的既有免疫力（pre-existing immunity）。为了预防流感，我们打流感免疫针。为了避免破伤风，我们打破伤风针。但是世上却没有“我们吃动物所以请救救我们”的针可打。

The growth of a virus

病毒泛滥

Gratefully, the practice of epidemiology is often calculated and predictable. Unfortunately, global health pandemics are not. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately seven in 10 known infectious diseases are believed to be zoonotic, which are diseases transmitted from animals to humans, and two-thirds of these diseases are linked to animals raised for food. As a family physician, I have an enormous amount of respect for these zoonotic viruses and an even greater amount of fear. It is a new dimension of viruses. The goal of every virus is to optimize itself and grow in its new host by hijacking cells to replicate (up to 10 million times per second). These viruses are being transmitted from bats to pangolins, to humans, back to pigs and civets, and so on. As they are introduced to new hosts, they become more frightening as they mutate, optimize themselves even further, and become stronger and stronger. We are left without any protection while experts scramble for up to 12 months to formulate an efficient vaccine. What we are left with is incomprehensible death and suffering, which could have been prevented.

流行病学工作经常可以做出估算和预测，这是值得庆幸的一方面。然而不幸的是，却无法准确预估全球卫生大流行病。根据美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）的统计数据，大约有70%的已知传染病是属于动物传染病，即由动物传染给人类的疾病；而三分之二的动物传染病与人类养殖的食用动物有关联。我作为一名家庭医生，这些人畜共患病毒（zoonotic viruses）引起了我的高度重视和甚至更大的恐惧。这些都是新奇怪异的病毒。每种病毒都企图不断优化自身，并在其新宿主体内通过劫持细胞进行复制的方式疯狂增长（每秒复制高达一千万次）。这些病毒由蝙蝠传染给穿山甲、人类，再传回给猪和果子狸、等等。这些病毒入侵新宿主后，变得愈加狰狞恐怖，因为它们不断变异、进一步优化自身、变得越来越凶悍强大。我们对此束手无策，而专家们匆忙苦干12个月后才能搞出有效疫苗。我们遭受的是莫名其妙的死亡和苦难，而这一切悲剧原本是可以避免的。

Witnessing the effects

目睹苦果

Throughout this pandemic, I still go to my office every day. My once lively, warm environment now feels sterile. A skeleton crew of brave healthcare workers persists, despite undeniable fatigue visible through their eyes—which is all we can see of each other over our surgical masks and N95s. While I am not in the emergency room or working the COVID unit, I witness the effects of this formidable virus in a different way. I speak with my patients via telemedicine, reassuring those worried about their loved ones and checking in on positive cases under self-quarantine at home. More often than not, I am comforting patients who have lost their job, their income, or even their parent in the nursing home when they aren’t able to say goodbye. I hold back my tears while offering as much comfort and reassurance as possible. My husband is an emergency room physician treating COVID-positive patients daily, my grandmother and numerous good friends are positive, and a close physician colleague is currently in the intensive care unit, intubated. I see the effects everywhere.

在这次疫情期间，我每天照常到我的办公室上班。曾经活泼温馨的工作环境现在明显感到枯燥沉闷。一批勇敢的医务工作者作为必要服务人员仍在坚守岗位，尽管他们的眼神已经流露出难以掩饰的疲惫──即使各自都戴着医用口罩或N95口罩，但此情此景，历历在目。虽然本人不在急诊室和COVID（冠状病毒疾病）部门工作，但我在不同场合也亲眼看到了这种可怕病毒所造成的诸多恶果。通过远程医疗（telemedicine）方式，我与我的病人们进行交谈，安抚那些担心自己亲人安危的居民，查看在家实施自我隔离的COVID阳性病人。我经常安慰的那些病人们（因为疫情）失去了工作、收入，甚至有的也未能到疗养院告别去世的父亲或母亲。我强忍住自己的泪水，尽最大努力安慰和鼓励那些遭遇不幸的人们。我的丈夫是一名急诊室医生，每天接诊治疗COVID阳性病人。我的祖母和许多好友都确诊感染了冠状病毒，另有一位要好的医生同事目前正在重症监护室（ICU）接受插管治疗。无论何处，目之所至，皆见苦果。

The one and only solution

唯一出路

I counsel every patient on the crucial importance of a plant-based diet—not only because it will reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and stroke, but because it is essential to avoid unnecessary suffering for all. If we continue to harm animals and destroy nature for our own gain, we will continue to suffer severe consequences. This virus is thriving, and other novel viruses will do the same if we do not learn and grow from this. The simplest and most effective way to achieve this goal is to adopt a plant-based diet. Doing so has markedly improved the lives and health of hundreds of my patients, and it is now critical that many, many more of us do the same.

植物性饮食（plant-based diet）不仅可以降低心脏病、糖尿病、中风和癌症的风险，而且为了避免所有不必要的苦难，植物性饮食也是必不可少的，故此我向每位病人郑重推介这种至关重要的饮食方式。如果我们为了一己私利继续伤害动物并破坏自然，那么我们将继续遭受严重的后果。目前这种病毒正在肆虐蔓延，而其它的新型病毒也将如此猖獗，如果我们不从本次疾病大流行中学习和成长的话。吃一堑，长一智，现在最简单、最有效的办法就是采纳植物性饮食。我的成百上千的病人们采用了这种饮食方式后，已经显著改善了他们的生命和健康。现在极其重要的事情是，许许多多的人们也同样遵循植物性饮食（素食、纯素食）。

Shantala Sonnad is a health and wellness-based family physician practicing in New York and a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Shantala Sonnad是一名在纽约执业的健康幸福导向的家庭医生，同时也是责任医疗医师委员会（PCRM）的会员。

进一步参考资料：http://fodizi.net/qt/qita/10049.html