First identified in Botswana and South Africa, this new iteration of the coronavirus has prompted concern among scientists and public health officials because of an unusually high number of mutations that have the potential to make the virus more transmissible and less susceptible to existing vaccines.

博茨瓦纳和南非首次发现的这种新冠病毒变异株，引起了科学家和公共卫生官员的关注，因为这种变异株突变的数量之多，有可能使病毒传播力更强，并且不易被现有疫苗阻挡。

The World Health Organization has called Omicron a “variant of concern” and on Monday warned that the global risks posed by it were “very high,” despite what officials described as a multitude of uncertainties. Cases have been identified in 20 countries so far, including Britain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. Although Omicron has not yet been detected in the United States, experts say it is only a matter of time before the variant shows up.

世界卫生组织称奥密克戎为“值得关切的变异株”，并在周一警告，尽管存在诸多不确定性，但它带来的全球风险“非常高”。到目前为止，已经有20个国家发现了相关病例，包括英国、意大利、比利时和荷兰。尽管美国尚未发现奥密克戎，但专家表示，该变种的出现只是时间问题。

Omicron’s discovery has prompted considerable panic across the globe, with a number of countries banning flights from southern Africa, or — like Israel, Japan and Morocco — barring entry of foreign travelers altogether.

奥密克戎的发现在全球引起了相当大的恐慌，许多国家禁止来自南部非洲的航班，或者像以色列、日本和摩洛哥那样，全面禁止外国旅客入境。

But public health experts have urged caution, noting that there is as yet no firm evidence that Omicron is more dangerous than previous variants like Delta, which quickly overtook its predecessors in the United States and other countries.

但公共卫生专家敦促大家谨慎行事，并指出目前尚无确凿证据表明奥密克戎的危险高于之前的德尔塔变异株，在美国和其他国家，德尔塔曾迅速取代了之前变的异株。

Although Delta turned out to be much more transmissible than prior variants — and there is some data suggesting it can cause more severe illness in the unvaccinated — there is little evidence it is more lethal or capable of outsmarting vaccines.

尽管事实证明德尔塔比之前的变异株更容易传播——并且有数据表明，该变种会在未接种疫苗的人中引发较重病症——但几乎没有证据表明它更具致命性，或能够躲过疫苗。

Much remains unknown about Omicron, including whether it is more transmissible and capable of causing more serious illness. There is some evidence the variant can reinfect people more readily.

关于奥密克戎我们还知之甚少，包括它是否更具传染性和是否会引发重症。有证据表明，该变异株使人再次感染的风险增加。

There are early signs that Omicron may cause only mild illness. But that observation was based mainly on South Africa’s cases among young people, who are less likely overall to become severely ill from Covid.

有早期迹象表明，奥密克戎可能只会引起轻症。但这一观察主要基于南非年轻病患，该群体总体上不太会因新冠病毒而发展成重症。

Dr. Angelique Coetzee, who chairs the South African Medical Association, said that the nation’s hospitals were not overwhelmed by patients infected with the new variant, and most of those hospitalized were not fully immunized. Moreover, most patients she had seen did not lose their sense of taste and smell, and had only a slight cough.

南非医学协会主席安吉丽·库切博士说，该国的医院并没有因感染新变异株的患者而不堪重负，而且大多数住院患者都没有完全接种疫苗。此外，她见过的大多数病人都没有失去味觉和嗅觉，只是轻微的咳嗽。

On Tuesday, Regeneron said its Covid antibody treatment might be less effective against Omicron, an indication that the popular and widely beneficial monoclonal antibody drugs may need to be updated if the new variant spreads aggressively.

周二，再生元制药表示，其新冠病毒抗体治疗对奥密克戎的效果可能较差，这表明如果新变异株大肆传播的话，受益广泛的热门单克隆抗体药物可能需要升级。

That said, Omicron’s emergence is so recent that it may be a while before experts know whether it is more pathogenic. Covid hospitalizations lag new infections by two weeks or more.

也就是说，由于奥密克戎出现的时间不久，专家们可能还需要一段时间才能知道它是否更具致病性。新的新冠感染病例入院治疗往往都是在两周或两周后。

Scientists expect to learn much more in the coming weeks. At the moment, they say there is no reason to believe Omicron is impervious to existing vaccines, although they may turn out to be less protective to some unknown degree.

科学家们希望在未来几周内能得到更多信息。目前，他们表示没有理由相信现有疫苗对奥密克戎无效，尽管有事实证明疫苗的保护作用可能会降低，而程度尚不得而知。

There’s another reason to remain calm: Vaccine makers have expressed confidence they can tweak existing formulations to make the shots more effective against new variants.

让我们冷静下来的还有另一个原因：疫苗制造商表示有信心调整现有的疫苗配方，使疫苗更有效地对抗新变异株。

Also reassuring: Omicron’s distinctive mutations make it easy to quickly identify with a nasal swab and lab test.

同样令人安心的是：奥密克戎独特的突变使其易于通过鼻拭子和实验室检测快速识别。

As the coronavirus replicates inside people, new mutations constantly arise. Most provide the virus with no new advantage, but sometimes mutations can give the pathogen a leg up by allowing it spread more readily among its human hosts or dodge the body’s immune response.

随着新冠病毒在人体内复制，新的突变不断出现。大多突变都没有为病毒提供新的优势，但有时突变可以使病原体更容易在人类宿主中传播或躲避身体的免疫反应，从而为病原体助力。

Researchers in South Africa sounded the alarm because they found more than 30 mutations in the spike protein, a component on the surface of the variant that allows it to bind to human cells and gain entry to the body. Some of the samples from Botswana shared about 50 mutations throughout the virus not previously found in combination.

南非的研究人员发出了警告，是因为他们在刺突蛋白中发现了30多个突变，刺突蛋白是变异株表面的一个组成部分，可以使其与人体细胞结合并进入人体。来自博茨瓦纳的一些样本之间共享了约50个以前未发现的突变组合。

The spike protein is the chief target of antibodies that the immune system produces to fight a Covid-19 infection. Having so many mutations raises concerns that Omicron’s spike might be able to somewhat evade antibodies produced by either previous infection or vaccination.

免疫系统为对抗新冠病毒感染而产生抗体，这些抗体的首要目标就是刺突蛋白。如此多的突变引发了人们的担忧，即奥密克戎的刺突可能会在某种程度上逃避因先前感染或疫苗接种产生的抗体。

Those mutations also raise the prospect that the variant will reduce the efficacy of monoclonal antibody treatments — a fear partly confirmed on Tuesday with Regeneron’s announcement.

变异株会降低单克隆抗体治疗的效果，而这些突变也提高了这种可能性——再生元制药在周二发表的声明部分证实了这种担忧。

Still, it is worth remembering the fate of earlier variants that stirred concern: Beta and Mu, for example, evolved the ability to partially evade the body’s immune defenses, but they never became a serious threat to the world because they proved to be poor at transmitting.

无论如何，引起人们关注的早期变异株的命运值得一提：例如，贝塔变异株和缪变异株进化出了部分免疫逃逸的能力，但它们从未对世界构成严重威胁，因为事实证明它们的传播能力很弱。

Vaccines are expected to provide some protection against Omicron because they stimulate not only antibodies but other immune cells that attack virus-infected cells. Mutations to the spike protein do not blunt that response, which most experts believe is instrumental in preventing serious illness and death.

疫苗有望针对奥密克戎提供一定的保护，因为它们不仅能刺激抗体，还能刺激其他免疫细胞攻击被病毒感染的细胞。刺突蛋白的突变不会削弱这种反应，大多数专家认为，这种反应有助于预防重症和死亡。

Citing the potential for waning immunity six months or more after vaccination, some health experts are promoting booster shots to increase antibody levels.

一些健康专家认为，在接种疫苗六个月或更长时间后，免疫力可能会下降，因此他们正在推广疫苗加强针，以提高抗体水平。

The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, has urged people to get a booster shot, which he said would most likely provide additional protection against severe disease. “We’ve said it over and over again and it deserves repeating. If you’re not vaccinated, get vaccinated, get boosted if you are vaccinated, continue to use the mitigation methods, namely masks, avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces,” he said on Tuesday.

美国首席传染病专家福奇敦促人们注射加强针，他说，这很有可能为预防重症提供额外的保护。“我们说了一遍又一遍，它值得重复。如果你没有接种疫苗，就去接种疫苗，如果你接种了，就去打加强针，继续使用预防方法，也就是戴口罩、避开人群和通风不良的空间，”他在周二说。

Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, makers of vaccines approved for use in the United States, and AstraZeneca, which is widely used in Europe, have all said they were studying Omicron, and they expressed confidence in their ability to tailor their formulations to target the variant.

获批在美国使用的疫苗制造商莫纳德、辉瑞生物科技和强生，以及在欧洲广泛使用的阿斯利康都表示，正在研究奥密克戎，并表示有信心、有能力针对这种变异株调整配方。

When the W.H.O. began to name emerging variants of the coronavirus, they turned to the Greek alphabet — Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and so on — to make them easier to describe. The first “variant of concern,” Alpha, was identified in Britain in late 2020, soon followed by Beta in South Africa.

当世卫组织开始为新冠病毒的新变异命名时，为方便描述，他们选择了希腊字母——阿尔法、贝塔、伽玛、德尔塔等等。第一个“值得关注的变异”阿尔法于2020年底在英国被发现，随后不久在南非发现了贝塔。

But veterans of American sorority and fraternity life might have noticed the system has skipped the next two letters in the alphabetical order: Nu and Xi.

但美国姐妹会和兄弟会的资深人士可能已经注意到，该系统跳过了按字母顺序排列的后面两个字母：纽(Nu)和克西(Xi)。

Officials thought Nu would be too easily confused with “new,” but the next letter, Xi, is a bit more complicated. W.H.O. officials said it was a common last name, and therefore potentially confusing. Some noted that it is also the name of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.

官员们认为“纽”(Nu)太容易和“new”（新）混淆，但下一个字母“克西”(Xi)就有点复杂了。世卫组织官员表示，这是一个常见的姓氏，因此可能会令人困惑。一些人指出，这也是中国最高领导人习近平的姓氏。

A spokesman for the W.H.O. said the organization’s policy was designed to avoid “causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups.”

世卫组织的一名发言人表示，该组织的政策旨在避免“对任何文化、社会、国家、地区、专业或种族群体造成冒犯”。

Next in line? Omicron. (Here’s how it’s pronounced, and here.)

下一个是什么？就是奥密克戎。（点击这里，还有这里，看看Omicron怎么念。）

Like Delta, which was first identified in India, the rise of yet another worrisome variant in the developing world points to a more fundamental problem facing the global community more than a year-and-a-half into the pandemic.

就像最初在印度发现的德尔塔病毒一样，发展中国家又出现了一种令人担忧的变异，表明疫情暴发一年半多以来，全球社会面临着一个更根本的问题。

The hoarding of vaccines by wealthy countries while poorer nations struggle to obtain them provides more opportunities for SARS CoV-2 to replicate and mutate among the unvaccinated. More mutations mean there are more chances for the virus to become more infectious, immune-resistant or lethal.

富裕国家囤积疫苗，而较贫穷的国家却在努力获取疫苗，这为SARS CoV-2在未接种疫苗的人群中复制和突变提供了更多机会。更多的突变意味着病毒有更多机会变得更具传染性、免疫抗性和致命性。

And as the rapid spread of Delta showed, a dangerous new variant is unlikely to remain in one place for very long.

而且正如德尔塔病毒的迅速传播所表明的，一种危险的新变异不太可能在一个地方停留很长时间。

The risks extend beyond public health. The resulting economic devastation from a new variant can hit affluent countries nearly as hard as those in the developing world. One academic study estimated trillions of dollars in economic loss to wealthy countries when residents of poorer countries remain largely unvaccinated.

风险不仅限于公共卫生。一种新变异所造成的经济破坏，对富裕国家的打击几乎和对发展中国家的打击一样严重。一项学术研究估计，如果较贫穷国家的居民基本上不接种疫苗，富裕国家将遭受数万亿美元的经济损失。

In recent days, the cascade of travel restrictions prompted by Omicron’s emergence has triggered resentment among Africans, who believe the continent is yet again bearing the brunt of panicked policies in Western countries that have failed to deliver vaccines and the resources needed to administer them.

最近几天，奥密克戎的出现引发了一连串的旅行限制，这引发了非洲人的不满。他们认为西方国家的恐慌政策又一次冲击了非洲大陆，与此同时，这些国家既没有提供疫苗，也没有提供接种疫苗所需的资源。

On Tuesday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the W.H.O., described the travel bans as unfair and counterproductive. “I well understand the concern of all countries to protect their citizens against a variant that we don’t yet fully understand,” he said.

周二，世卫组织总干事谭德塞称旅行禁令是不公平的，而且起到了反效果。他说：“我很理解所有国家都想保护其公民不受一种我们还不完全了解的变种的侵害。”

“But I am equally concerned that several member states are introducing blunt, blanket measures that are not evidence-based or effective on their own, and which will only worsen inequities.”

“但我同样担心的是，有几个成员国正在推出生硬、笼统的措施，这些措施本身既没有证据，也没有效果，只会加剧不平等现象。”