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为此，我们梳理了一下过去一年的大事，整理出三个内容领域有可能被选进考研英语阅读理解试题中。它们分别是碳中和、德尔塔病毒和创新。
在未来的几个月中，我们将会持续更新相关主题的英语精读内容，助力考研上岸。欢迎大家在扫描上方海报二维码，订阅《经济学人·商论》后免费领取学习社区使用权限，解锁更多考研英语内容和主编的原刊笔记。
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主题：德尔塔病毒
经历了18个月疫情的肆虐，全球并没有完全从新冠阴影中走出，很大程度上是因为变异的德尔塔病毒捣的鬼。德尔塔病毒到底是怎么传播的？病毒变异为什么如此难防？未来为什么可能需要打第三针疫苗？“Jabs mostly fend off the Delta strain but breakthroughs are infectious”解释得特别清楚，三张颇具代表性的《经济学人》图表也可以锻炼你的数据阅读能力。
👆《经济学人·商论》App内搜索“新冠”阅读更多相关主题内容
The Delta delta
Jabs mostly fend off the Delta strain but breakthroughs are infectious
A new British study also finds that immunity wanes over time
2021-08-28
ON AUGUST 18TH America’s surgeon general announced that people who got covid-19
vaccines
at least eight months ago can receive an extra
shot
. Israel has already given a third
jab
to many citizens. France and Britain are also considering
boosters
.


💡注：vaccine, shot, jab, booster 都是疫苗的意思，在一段话里，用四个稍微不同的表达方式，强调注射，中文中没有一一对应的词，只能根据语境去翻译，但大致都是“打针”。

Covid-19 vaccines offer better defences against hospitalisation and death than versus transmission. However, their protection against infection may have begun to wane. In Iceland and Israel, most adults got jabs months ago, but cases are soaring.


There are two leading explanations for this trend. One is that the Delta
variant
escapes protection from vaccines. Another is that the jabs’ efficacy declines over time. A new paper finds evidence for both causes.


💡注：variant，变体/变化/变异。这里强调不再需要加上strain（毒株）就完全能够表达清楚是德尔塔变异毒株。

Led by Koen Pouwels of Oxford, the study, released on August 19th, uses a survey of 500,000 people in Britain who were tested regularly for covid-19. After adjusting for age and time since vaccination, it compared the jabs’ efficacy during two time periods: one dominated by the Alpha variant, and another by Delta. For cases with a high
viral load
, the efficacy of Pfizer’s jab fell from 94% against Alpha to 84% versus Delta. AstraZeneca’s efficacy dipped from 86% to 70%, and protection resulting from previous infection declined from 87% to 77%.


💡注：viral load，字面翻译是病毒载量。如果关注疫情的发展，可以知道Delta病毒感染者一个很典型的情况就是他们鼻腔里病毒会快速繁殖，因此传染性也要强很多，原因就是病毒载量的迅速增加。

The passage of time has reinforced this
immune escape
. One Israeli study showed that people who got Pfizer’s jab in January or February were 50% more likely to have a “breakthrough” case in June or July than were those vaccinated in March or April. The British data back up this result: in the three months following a second jab, Pfizer’s efficacy declined by ten percentage points. AstraZeneca’s vaccine had a milder drop, though it was less protective overall.


💡注：immune escape， 英语里也同样存在造新词的情况。这个词组恰恰形象地描述了上一段话中打过两针疫苗或者得过新冠而产生免疫力的人在六个月之后面临传染性更强的德尔塔病毒自身免疫力下降的例子，直接翻译为免疫逃逸，也可以用国内现在常用的“免疫突破”。或者是下文的breakthrough case，突破案例，是同一个意思。

The study’s most striking finding involved transmission. In the Alpha period, vaccinated people with breakthrough cases produced only small amounts of virus. This made them less likely to spread it. In contrast, viral loads in breakthrough Delta cases were just as high as those of people exposed to
viral proteins
for the first time.


💡注：这里viral proteins其实和virus 是同一个意思，都翻译成新冠病毒。病毒本质上也是由蛋白质组成。

The British paper does not study the severity of covid-19 cases. In theory, protection against infection can wane without harming defences against serious disease, because a vaccine-trained immune system can expel the virus quickly. However, hospitalisations in Israel have risen to levels last seen in March.
The jury is still out
on whether widespread boosters will be necessary to keep hospital beds open.■


💡注：The jury is still out，很常见的成语，本意是陪审团还没有给出裁定，引申为还没有定论。
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主题：碳中和
自从去年中国提出2030年碳达峰、2060年碳中和的时间表之后，“碳中和”变成了热词。今年极端天气频发，联合国报告为地球气候变化提出“红色警报”，都增加了推动碳中和的急迫性，也让气候经济变成一门显学。《经济学人》的“Giving up carbs”就是一篇有助于理解碳中和的文章。
👆《经济学人·商论》App内搜索“碳”阅读相关文章
Carbon abatement
Giving up carbs
What are cheap ways to cut carbon? Bill Gates is the latest to ask the question
2021-04-01
IN THE TRENDIER parts of Berlin, cargo bikes are the rage. Locals use the bicycles, which have a wheelbarrow-sized box at the front, to do the weekly shop or ferry children around. Because they cut carbon-dioxide emissions, local authorities are subsidising the craze. But the well-intentioned schemes look pricey when you consider how much carbon is abated. One such scheme costs the city €370,000 ($450,000), but is expected to reduce emissions by only seven tonnes a year. That works out at over €50,000 per tonne abated. The equivalent figure for schemes that support the sale of low-carbon heating systems, by contrast, is €200 per tonne.
💡注：emissions， 排放 碳排放，其实是二氧化碳排放的简称。subsidise 补贴，在经济学原理中，政府补贴常常是推动新技术实施和企业/个人行为改变的主要推手
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主题：创新
创新仍然是贯穿过去几年最重要的关键词，尤其是在中美科技竞争的大背景之下，研究政府投资与创新的关系很重要，了解美国政府投资创新的路线图更重要。“Congress is set to make a down-payment on innovation in America”把美国拜登政府积极推动的政府投资科技的《无尽前沿法案》做了一番剖析，也解读了美国自二战以来政府推动科技发展的战略思路，值得细读。
👆《经济学人·商论》App内搜索“创新”阅读相关文章
Political science
Congress is set to make a down-payment on innovation in America
Federal spending on research is about to get a boost
2021-06-15
When it was first introduced in May 2020, the Endless Frontier Act planned to set aside $100bn for a new Directorate for Technology and Innovation within the NSF. This would have borrowed characteristics from the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the military-research office responsible for spearheading research that led to the internet, the computer mouse and mRNA vaccines.
💡注：注：Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)，美国国防部高级研究计划局，在政府所推动的创新机构中是神一样的存在，在上世纪五十年代末创建之后，过去60年几乎所有重要的发明，从互联网、GPS、鼠标到最新的mRNA，都与它有深厚的关系。
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