Get Ready for a Vaccine Information War

　　如果有了新冠疫苗，但美国人拒绝接种怎么办?

　　The other night, midway through watching a clip from “Plandemic” — a documentary that went viral on social media last week, spreading baseless lies and debunked nonsense about the coronavirus to millions of Americans overnight — I had a terrifying thought:

　　上个星期，社交媒体上疯传一部名叫《瘟疫大计划》(Plandemic) 的纪录片，一夜之间向成百上千万美国人传播关于新冠病毒毫无根据的谎言和已被揭穿的无稽之谈。看到其中一个片段，我产生了一个可怕的想法：

　　What if we get a Covid-19 vaccine and half the country refuses to take it?

　　如果我们有了新冠病毒的疫苗，但全国有一半人拒绝接种怎么办?

　　It occurred to me that all the misinformation we’ve seen so far — the false rumors that 5G cellphone towers fuel the coronavirus, that drinking bleach or injecting UV rays can cure it, that Dr. Anthony Fauci is part of an anti-Trump conspiracy — may be just the warm-up act for a much bigger information war when an effective vaccine becomes available to the public. This war could pit public health officials and politicians against an anti-vaccination movement that floods social media with misinformation, conspiracy theories and propaganda aimed at convincing people that the vaccine is a menace rather than a lifesaving, economy-rescuing miracle.

　　我发现到目前为止，我们看到的所有错误信息——5G信号塔导致新冠病毒、喝漂白剂或接受紫外线照射可以治愈这种病、安东尼·福奇(Anthony Fauci)参与了反特朗普阴谋——所有这些可能只是为有效疫苗推出时一场更大信息战的热身。这场战争可能会让公共卫生官员和政界人士与反疫苗运动对抗，届时这个运动将在社交媒体上到处发布虚假信息、阴谋论和宣传，目的是让人们相信疫苗是一种威胁，而不是拯救生命、拯救经济的奇迹。

　　Scariest of all? It could actually work.

　　最可怕的是什么?是可能真的会这样。

　　I’ve been following the anti-vaccine community on and off for years, watching its members operate in private Facebook groups and Instagram accounts, and have found that they are much more organized and strategic than many of their critics believe. They are savvy media manipulators, effective communicators and experienced at exploiting the weaknesses of social media platforms. (Just one example: Shortly after Facebook and YouTube began taking down copies of “Plandemic” for violating their rules, I saw people in anti-vaccine groups editing it in subtle ways to evade the platforms’ automated enforcement software and reposting it.)

　　多年来，我一直在断断续续地关注反疫苗团体，观察其成员在Facebook和Instagram上的私人群组和账号的活动，发现他们比许多批评者认为的更有组织性和战略性。他们是精明的媒体操纵者、高效的沟通者，擅长利用社交媒体平台的弱点。(举个例子：在Facebook和YouTube撤下违反规定的《瘟疫大计划》一片后不久，我看到反疫苗团体的人对它做了微妙的编辑，以避开平台的自动执行软件，然后再次转发。)

　　In short, the anti-vaxxers have been practicing for this. And I’m worried that they will be unusually effective in sowing doubts about a Covid-19 vaccine for several reasons.

　　简而言之，反疫苗者一直都在做这种事。我担心，出于以下几个原因，他们可以非常高效地引起人们对新冠疫苗的怀疑。

　　First, because of the pandemic’s urgency, any promising Covid-19 vaccine is likely to be fast-tracked through the testing and approval process. It may not go through years of clinical trials and careful studies of possible long-term side effects, the way other drugs do. That could create an opening for anti-vaccine activists to claim that it is untested and dangerous, and to spin reasonable concerns about the vaccine into widespread, unfounded fears about its safety.

　　首先，由于疫情的紧迫性，任何有希望的疫苗都可能走快速通道通过测试和批准程序。它可能不会像其他药物那样，经过多年临床试验和对可能的长期副作用的仔细研究。这可能会给反疫苗活动者提供机会，宣称疫苗未经测试且危险，并将对疫苗的合理担忧转化为对其安全性的广泛、毫无根据的怀疑。

　　Second, if a vaccine does emerge, there is a good chance that leading health organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or the World Health Organization will have a hand in producing or distributing it. If that’s the case, anti-vaccine activists, who have been crusading against these groups for years, will have plenty of material stockpiled to try to discredit them. They are already taking aim at Mr. Gates with baseless conspiracy theories claiming that he created and is trying to profit from the virus. These theories will be amplified, and the attempts to discredit leading virus research efforts will intensify as the vaccine nears.

　　其次，如果确实出现了疫苗，那么像比尔和梅琳达·盖茨基金会(Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)或世界卫生组织这样的重要卫生组织就很有可能参与生产或分发。如果是这样的话，多年来一直在讨伐这些组织的反疫苗活动者将会有大量的材料储备，试图败坏这些组织的名声。他们已经在用毫无根据的阴谋论来攻击盖茨，声称是他创造了病毒，并试图从中获利。这些阴谋论将被放大，随着疫苗临近，将会有更激烈的活动，试图破坏顶尖病毒研究成果的名誉。

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