《自然》社論：新冠病毒污名化必須停止——刻不容緩。

EDITORIAL  07 APRIL 2020

Stop the coronavirus stigma now

The pandemic is fuelling deplorable racism and discrimination, especially against Asian people. Education and research will also pay the price.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) announced in February that the disease caused by the new coronavirus would be called COVID‑19, the name was quickly adopted by organizations involved in communicating public-health information. As well as naming the illness, the WHO was implicitly sending a reminder to those who had erroneously been associating the virus with Wuhan and with China in their news coverage— including Nature. That we did so was an error on our part, for which we take responsibility and apologize.

For years, it was common for viral diseases to be associated with the landscapes, places or regions where the first outbreaks occurred — as in Middle East respiratory syndrome, or Zika virus, named after a forest in Uganda. But in 2015, the WHO introduced guidelines to stop this practice and thereby reduce stigma and negative impacts such as fear or anger directed towards those regions or their people. The guidelines underlined the point that viruses infect all humans: when an outbreak happens, everyone is at risk, regardless of who they are or where they are from.

Researchers: show world leaders how to behave in a crisis

And yet, as countries struggle to control the spread of the new coronavirus, a minority of politicians are sticking with the outdated script. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly associated the virus with China. Brazilian lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro — the son of President Jair Bolsonaro — has called it “China’s fault”. Politicians elsewhere, including in the United Kingdom, are also saying that China bears responsibility.

Continuing to associate a virus and the disease it causes with a specific place is irresponsible and needs to stop. As infectious-disease epidemiologist Adam Kucharski reminds us in his timely book The Rules of Contagion, published in February, history tells us that pandemics lead to communities being stigmatized, which is why we all need to exercise more care. If in doubt, seek advice, and always fall back on the consensus of the evidence.

Racist attacks

Failing to do so has consequences. It’s clear that since the outbreak was first reported, people of Asian descent around the world have been subjected to racist attacks, with untold human costs — for example, on their health and livelihoods. Law-enforcement agencies say they are making investigation of hate crimes a high priority, but such inquiries might come too late for some, including many of the more than 700,000 Chinese undergraduate, master’s and PhD students studying at universities outside China. The majority are in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Many have returned home while their institutions are closed owing to lockdowns, and many might not return. Students are hesitating to come back, in part because of fears of continuing racism, along with uncertainty over the future of their courses and not knowing when international travel will resume.

These young people will experience disruption and the loss of new connections and opportunities. But the loss of students from China and other countries in Asia has wide-ranging -and worrying implications for the scholarly enterprise, too. It means that universities in the affected countries will become less diverse — something that has not happened for generations.

A loss for all

For decades, campuses have striven to boost diversity, and countries have enacted policies to encourage international academic mobility. Diversity is valuable for its own sake. It encourages understanding and dialogue between cultures, and sharing of points of view and ways of being. And it has always been a fuel for research and innovation.

Moreover, a diverse campus body is needed to improve policies and structures so that universities — and research publishing — can become more welcoming. Many barriers to diversity remain: in the April issue of Nature Reviews Physics, for example, researchers and science communicators from China, India, Japan and South Korea report examples of discrimination and other factors that prevent them being heard in international journals (S. Hanasoge et al. Nature Rev. Phys. 2, 178–180; 2020).

Many leaders want to listen to and act on expert scientific advice to deal with this pandemic and save lives. On terminology, the advice is clear: we must all do everything we can to avoid and reduce stigma; not associate COVID-19 with particular groups of people or places; and emphasize that viruses do not discriminate — we are all at risk.

It would be tragic if stigma, fuelled by the coronavirus, led Asia’s young people to retreat from international campuses, curtailing their own education, reducing their own and others’ opportunities and leaving research worse off — just when the world is relying on it to find a way out.

Coronavirus stigma must stop — now.

Nature 580, 165 (2020)

doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-01009-0

《自然》雜誌發社論致歉：曾將病毒與武漢關聯 願為此擔責

《自然》雜誌微信公眾號“Nature自然科研”4月9日發表社論《停止新冠病毒的污名化》：

新冠病毒大流行之際，令人震驚的種族主義和歧視甚囂塵上，尤其是針對亞洲人的歧視。教育和科研將為此付出代價。

今年2月，世衛組織宣布將新型冠狀病毒引起的疾病命名為“COVID19”，這一名字很快便被傳播公共衛生信息的大小組織採用。世衛組織在提出這個命名的時候，委婉地提醒了一下曾經在新聞報道中錯誤地將新冠病毒與武漢和中國關聯在一起的人和組織，包括《自然》。我們當初的做法確實有誤，我們願為此承擔責任並道歉。

多年來，人們經常會將病毒性疾病與疫情首先暴發的地區、地點或區域關聯在一起，比如中東呼吸綜合徵（Middle East respiratory syndrome）或寨卡病毒——以烏干達的一片森林命名。但是，世衛組織在2015年發布指引，要求停止這種做法，以減少污名化和惡劣影響，比如對所涉區域或當地民眾的恐懼或憤怒之情。指引中強調，病毒會感染所有人類：一旦發生疫情，所有人都有風險，無論他們是誰，無論他們來自哪裡。

但是，在各國努力控制新冠病毒傳播之際，少數政客卻依然抱守舊辭不放。美國總統特朗普一再將新冠病毒與中國關聯在一起，巴西總統博索納羅之子、巴西眾議員愛德華多稱新冠肺炎疫情是“中國的錯”。其他地區的政客，包括英國在內，也在說中國應為此負責。

執意將一種病毒及其所致疾病與某個地方關聯在一起，是一種不負責任的行為，需要立即停止。傳染病流行病學家Adam Kucharski在他2月出版的應時之作《傳染的規則》（The Rules of Contagion）中這樣提醒我們：歷史表明，大流行會導致一些群體被污名化，這就是為什麼我們所有人都要謹言慎行。如果存有疑問，可以徵求他人意見，但無論如何，一定要落到實實在在的證據上。

種族主義攻擊

做不到這一點會造成嚴重後果。顯而易見的是，自從新冠肺炎疫情暴發以來，世界各地的亞裔成為了種族主義攻擊的對象，產生了難以計數的人力代價，包括對他們身心健康和謀生方式造成的損失。執法機構表示正在重點調查仇恨犯罪，但是這些行動對於一些人來說可能為時已晚——包括70多萬在海外學習的中國本科生、碩士生和博士生中的大部分人。中國留學生主要集中在澳大利亞、英國和美國，許多學生在學校關閉後已經陸續返回中國，但是也有許多沒有回國。關於是否要回國，這些學生左右為難：一方面害怕繼續遭受種族歧視，一方面擔心未來學業的不確定性，加上國際航班的恢復時間也未知。

這些年輕學子的學業被打斷，失去了剛剛建立的關係和機會；而損失來自中國和亞洲其他國家的學生，也會給高校院所帶來令人擔憂的深遠影響。它意味着受影響國家的高校將面臨多樣性的下降——這在幾代人中從未發生過。

一損俱損

幾十年來，各個學校一直在努力提高多樣性，各個國家也在制定政策鼓勵國際學術流動性。多樣性的價值不言而喻。它鼓勵不同文化之間的理解和對話，鼓勵共享不同的觀點和存在方式，而且始終是推動研究和創新的動力。

不僅如此，一個多樣性的校園也是改進政策和體制所必不可少的，只有這樣，才能讓高校——以及研究成果發表——變得更具有包容性。通向多樣性之路依然道阻且長：在《自然綜述：物理》的4月刊中，來自中國、印度、日本和韓國的科研人員和科學傳播人士用親身實例講述了歧視和其他因素如何阻止他們在國際期刊上發聲（S. Hanasoge et al. Nature Rev. Phys.2, 178–180; 2020）。

許多領導人都希望聽取專家的科學意見，據此採取行動應對新冠病毒大流行，挽救生命。在術語方面，來自專家的意見很明確：我們必須竭盡所能地避免和減少污名化；不要把COVID-19和特定的人群或地方相提並論；病毒不會歧視——我們所有人都有風險。

如果新冠病毒引起的污名化導致亞洲年輕人離開國際校園，縮短教育時間，放棄自己和他人的機會，讓科研環境每況愈下——在這個世界依賴科研尋求出路之際，將不啻為一個悲劇。

新冠病毒污名化必須停止——刻不容緩。

原文以

Stop the coronavirus stigma now

為標題發表在2020年 4月 7日的《自然》社論上

nature

Nature|doi:10.1038/d41586-020-01009-0