知名美国制药公司是如何成为病毒"超级传播者"的

　　BOSTON On the first Monday in March, Michel Vounatsos, chief executive of the drug company Biogen, appeared in good spirits. The companys new Alzheimers drug was showing promise after years of setbacks. Revenues had never been higher.

　　波士顿3月的第一个周一，制药公司百健(Biogen)的首席执行官冯纳玺(Michel Vounatsos)看上去特别有精神。公司治疗阿尔茨海默症的新药在经历了多年挫折后显露出了希望。公司的收入从来没有这么高过。

　　Onstage at an elite health care conference in Boston, Mr. Vounatsos touted the drugs remarkable journey. Asked if the coronavirus that was ravaging China would disrupt supply chains and upend the companys big plans, Mr. Vounatsos said no.

　　So far, so good, he said.

　　到目前为止，一切都好，他说。

　　But even as he spoke, the virus was already silently spreading among Biogens senior executives, who did not know they had been infected days earlier at the companys annual leadership meeting.

　　但就在他说这番话的时候，新冠病毒已在百健高管中悄悄传播，这些人不知道他们已在几天前公司召开的领导力年度会议上感染了病毒。

　　Biogen employees, most feeling healthy, boarded planes full of passengers. They drove home to their families. And they carried the virus to at least six states, the District of Columbia and three countries, outstripping the ability of local public health officials to trace the spread.

　　会后，这些百健员工大多数并无不适，他们登上了满载乘客的飞机。他们开车回到家中。病毒就这样被带到美国的至少六个州和哥伦比亚特区，还传到了其他三个国家，范围之广超出了当地公共卫生官员追踪病毒传播的能力。

　　The Biogen meeting was one of the earliest examples in the U.S. of what epidemiologists call superspreading events of Covid-19, where a small gathering of people leads to a huge number of infections. Unlike the most infamous clusters of cases stemming from a nursing home outside Seattle or a 40th birthday party in Connecticut, the Biogen cluster happened at a meeting of top health care professionals whose job it was to fight disease, not spread it.

　　百健的那次会议是被流行病学家称为美国新冠病毒肺炎超级传播事件的最早例子之一。超级传播事件指的是一小群人的聚集导致了一场大规模的感染，包括西雅图附近的一家专业护理设施内出现的聚集性病例，以及与康涅狄格州的一个40岁生日派对有关的感染，但与这两起声名狼藉的超级传播事件不同的是，百健的聚集性感染发生在一个顶级医疗专业人士的会议上，这些人的工作应该是抗击病毒，而不是传播疾病。

　　The smartest people in health care and drug development and they were completely oblivious to the biggest thing that was about to shatter their world, said John Carroll, editor of Endpoints News, which covers the biotech industry.

　　他们是医疗保健和药物开发领域最聪明的人，他们对即将打破他们世界的最大事件完全没有意识，报道生物技术行业的专业媒体端点新闻(Endpoints News)的编辑约翰卡罗尔(John Carroll)说。

　　The official count of those sickened 99, including employees and their contacts, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health includes only those who live in that state. The true number across the United States is certainly higher. The first two cases in Indiana were Biogen executives. So was the first known case in Tennessee, and six of the earliest cases in North Carolina.

　　据马萨诸塞州公共卫生部的官方数字，百健的聚集性感染导致99人患病，包括员工和他们的接触者，但这个数字只包括该州居民。美国各地与百健有关的实际病例数肯定更高。印第安纳州的头两例感染都发生在百健高管身上。田纳西州的首例已知感染者以及北卡罗来纳州最早的6名感染者都是百健高管。

　　All the people outside Massachusetts that The New York Times has connected to the cluster have recovered. But its impossible to say for certain whether anyone became gravely ill or died from the spread out of the conference.

　　《纽约时报》在马萨诸塞州以外找到的与百健聚集性感染有关联的所有人都已康复。但目前还不能确定，是否有人因此患上重症或已经死亡。

　　In hindsight, many people have criticized Biogens decision to continue with its leadership meeting in late February, which was attended by vice presidents from European countries already hit by the virus. Others in the industry fault Biogen for being too tight-lipped about the outbreak.

　　事后，许多人批评百健没有做出取消2月下旬的领导力会议的决定，与会者包括来自已经受到病毒打击的欧洲国家的公司副总裁。业内人士则指责百健对疫情守口如瓶。

　　At least two of the companys senior executives have tested positive. Citing privacy concerns, the company has declined to name them, even as other chief executives in biotech have disclosed their positive tests.

　　百健至少有两名高管后来病毒检测结果呈阳性。公司以担心隐私为由，拒绝透露这些人的姓名，尽管其他生物科技公司的首席执行官们已经披露了自己的阳性检测结果。

　　Responding to questions from The New York Times, Mr. Vounatsos refused to say even whether he had been tested for Covid-19.

　　冯纳玺在回答时报的提问时，甚至拒绝透露自己是否做过新冠病毒检测。

　　He is completely focused on employee safety, supplying medicines to patients, and leading the company, said a Biogen spokesman, David Caouette. This takes precedence over his personal health status.

　　他把全部精力都放在员工安全、为病人提供药物，以及领导公司上，百健发言人戴维考埃特(David Caouette)说。这些工作比他的个人健康状况更重要。

　　The company has defended its handling of the leadership meeting and its aftermath, saying it made the best decisions it could with the information available at the time.

　　百健为公司召开领导力会议以及后续的处理进行了辩护，称公司根据当时可获得的信息做了最好的决定。

　　For a company whose mission is to save lives, it was very difficult to see our colleagues and community directly affected by this disease, Mr. Vounatsos said in his first public comments about what happened at Biogen. We would never have knowingly put anyone at risk.

　　对一家以拯救生命为己任的公司来说，看到我们的同事和社区受到这种疾病的直接影响，令人非常难受，冯纳玺在就百健发生的事情首次发表公开评论时说。我们绝不会故意让任何人的健康受到威胁。

　　Founded in 1978 and based near Boston, Biogen helped pioneer the biotechnology industry, specializing in multiple sclerosis drugs. The company is best known now for its work on a promising treatment for Alzheimers.

　　百健是生物技术行业的先驱，公司成立于1978年，总部设在波士顿附近，曾专门从事多发性硬化症药物的研发。公司在治疗阿尔茨海默症方面取得的大有希望的进展，是其目前最为人所知的工作。

　　Its experimental drug was seen as a potential holy grail until the company announced about a year ago that the drug appeared to be a failure in large-scale trials. Patients were devastated. The companys stock nose-dived.

　　百健的这个实验药物曾被视为一个潜在的圣杯直到大约一年前，公司宣布，该药物似乎在大规模临床试验中失败了。这让阿尔茨海默症患者极为失望。公司的股票暴跌。

　　But last fall, in a stunning reversal, Biogen announced that further analysis of the data suggested the drug actually worked at higher doses. Mr. Vounatsos said the company planned to seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration as soon as possible. The stock soared; the company pulled in record annual revenues of about $14.4 billion.

　　但在去年秋天的一个惊人逆转中，百健宣布，对数据的进一步分析表明，该药物在更高剂量下实际上是有效的。冯纳玺当时说，公司打算尽快获得美国食品和药物管理局（简称FDA）的批准。公司的股价随之飙升，年收入达到创记录的约144亿美元。

　　By the time of Biogens annual leadership meeting on Feb. 26 and 27, spirits were high. So was the pressure to deliver.

　　2月26日和27日召开百健年度领导力会议时，公司上下情绪高涨，但在履行诺言上也面临着很大的压力。

　　Although some other companies canceled international meetings around that time, Biogen never discussed doing so. The outbreak was raging in China but had not yet been declared a worldwide pandemic. As of Feb. 21, the Friday before the meeting, the United States had only 30 confirmed cases, according to data compiled by The T