When Paul and I were starting Microsoft, we had a vision that personal computers would one day play a significant role in people’s lives. But I don’t think either of us ever foresaw a future where they would be your only connection to the world. Like many people, there were entire days this year when the only human interaction I had was through a screen.
当保罗和我创办微软的时候，我们有一个愿景，那就是个人电脑有朝一日会在人们的生活中扮演重要角色。但是我认为我们都没有预见到未来他们会成为你与世界的唯一联系。和许多人一样，今年有整整一天，我只能通过屏幕与人交流。
The result has been the most unusual and difficult year of my life. (I suspect a lot of the people reading this might say the same.) 2020 had a brief period of relative normalcy before COVID-19 upended everything. In 2021, the pandemic has dominated our lives since day one. We’ve all had to adapt to a “new normal,” although what that looks like is different for every person. For me, the result has been a year spent mostly online.
结果是我一生中最不寻常和最困难的一年。(我怀疑很多读这篇文章的人也会这么说。)2020年经历了一段短暂的相对正常时期，之后2019冠状病毒疾病颠覆了一切。在2021年，这种流行病从一开始就主宰了我们的生活。我们都不得不去适应一个“新的常态”，尽管每个人看起来都不一样。对我来说，这一年的时间大部分花在了网上。
I had stretches of time without any face-to-face social interaction. If I had a break between meetings, I’d walk around my yard just to see something different. After work, I’d play bridge with friends online or hang out with them over video chat. Once I got vaccinated, I started having some small in-person get-togethers, but my social life is still a lot more digital than it used to be.
我有一段时间没有任何面对面的社交活动。如果我在会议间隙休息一下，我会在院子里走走，看看有什么不一样的东西。下班后，我会和朋友在网上打桥牌，或者和他们一起视频聊天。一旦接种疫苗，我就开始举行一些小型的面对面聚会，但我的社交生活仍然比过去数字化得多。
It’s been a strange and disorienting experience. My personal world has never felt smaller than it did over the last twelve months.
这是一次奇怪而令人迷惑的经历。在过去的12个月里，我的个人世界从未像现在这样小过。
At the same time, this year was a reminder that our world is more connected than ever. 2021 was full of monumental events with global repercussions, including extreme weather events, the ongoing effects of the pandemic, and America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Every time you looked at the news, you were reminded of just how significantly something happening on the other side of the world could affect you at home. (Just look at how one container ship stuck in the Suez Canal for a week caused shipping delays around the world.) It’s never been clearer that tackling big problems requires people working together across borders and sectors.
与此同时，今年提醒我们，我们的世界比以往任何时候都更加紧密地联系在一起。2021年充满了具有全球影响的重大事件，包括极端天气事件，大流行的持续影响，以及美国从阿富汗撤军。每当你看到新闻，你就会想起世界另一端发生的事情对你家里的影响有多大。(只要看看一艘集装箱船在苏伊士运河滞留了一个星期，是如何造成全球航运延误的。)解决重大问题需要跨国界和跨部门的人们共同努力，这一点从未如此清晰。
People rest in a cooling center in Portland, Oregon, during a heatwave in June. (Kathryn Elsesser/AFP)
在六月的热浪中，人们在俄勒冈州波特兰的一个冷却中心休息
A large cargo ship became lodged in the Suez Canal, halting global commerce for six days in March. (Songphol Thesakit/Getty Images)
一艘大型货轮在苏伊士运河搁浅，导致全球贸易在三月份停顿了六天。(Songphol Thesakit/Getty Images)
People rest in a cooling center in Portland, Oregon, during a heatwave in June. (Kathryn Elsesser/AFP)
在六月的热浪中，人们在俄勒冈州波特兰的一个冷却中心休息
A large cargo ship became lodged in the Suez Canal, halting global commerce for six days in March. (Songphol Thesakit/Getty Images)
一艘大型货轮在苏伊士运河搁浅，导致全球贸易在三月份停顿了六天。(Songphol Thesakit/Getty Images)
Collaboration has been a constant theme with my work this year. The foundation continues to take up the bulk of my time, and I’m blown away by the amazing progress made by our team and our partners in 2021. Most weeks, we have a virtual get-together with everyone who’s working on our COVID response. Each meeting focuses on a different topic, like disease modelling or vaccine distribution. It’s inspiring to hear how groups are working together to find solutions.
合作一直是我今年工作的主题。基金会继续占用我的大部分时间，我被我们团队和合作伙伴在2021年取得的惊人进步所震惊。大多数时候，我们会和每一个致力于我们的 ovid 反应的人举行一个虚拟的聚会。每次会议的重点都不同，比如疾病建模或疫苗分配。听到团队如何一起工作来找到解决方案是很鼓舞人心的。
Although COVID-19 has been a huge focus, the foundation continues to make progress in other areas. Our U.S. Program is working with partners to help students and teachers navigate the strange new world of pandemic-era education, and my colleagues working on gender equality are fighting for a more equitable global recovery. The global health and development teams have found creative ways to protect advancements on diseases like polio, TB, and HIV and continue progress in reducing childhood mortality. (This year’s Goalkeepers Report outlines how the pandemic hasn’t set us back as badly as feared.)
尽管2019冠状病毒疾病基金会一直是关注的焦点，但基金会在其他领域也在不断取得进展。我们的美国项目正在与合作伙伴合作，帮助学生和教师在大流行时代的教育这个陌生的新世界中航行。我的同事们正在努力实现性别平等，争取实现更加公平的全球复苏。全球卫生和发展小组已经找到了创造性的方法来保护像小儿麻痹症、结核病和艾滋病毒等疾病的进展，并继续在降低儿童死亡率方面取得进展。(今年的《守门员报告》概述了这场流行病如何没有像人们担心的那样让我们倒退。)
One of the most exciting things that happened was WHO approval of the first malaria vaccine. Malaria kills nearly 650,000 people every year—more than half of them children under five—and remains one of the leading causes of death in low-income countries. We funded late-stage clinical development of the vaccine between 2001 and 2015 and continue to support research into how to optimize its effectiveness. This new vaccine is giving us insights into how to develop second-generation vaccines and preventative tools that can be used on all ages, are even more effective, and can help us reach the goal of eradication.
发生的最令人兴奋的事情之一是世卫组织批准了第一批疟疾疫苗。疟疾每年夺去近65万人的生命，其中一半以上是5岁以下儿童，而且仍然是低收入国家的主要死亡原因之一。我们在2001年至2015年间资助了疫苗的后期临床开发，并继续支持如何优化其有效性的研究。这种新疫苗使我们深入了解如何开发可用于所有年龄段的第二代疫苗和预防工具，这些疫苗和工具甚至更加有效，可以帮助我们实现根除的目标。
This year also saw the start of a new chapter in my climate work. I released my book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster and launched the Breakthrough Energy Catalyst and Fellows programs to support financing, producing, and buying new clean-energy technologies. The reason I felt confident enough to expand our efforts so significantly was the incredible progress I’ve seen from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, where we are now supporting over 70 amazing companies.
今年，我的气候工作也开启了新的篇章。我发表了我的书《如何避免气候灾难》 ，并启动了突破能源催化剂和研究员计划，以支持融资、生产和购买新的清洁能源技术。我之所以有足够的信心，能够如此显著地扩大我们的努力，是因为我在突破能源风险投资公司看到了令人难以置信的进展，我们现在支持着70多家了不起的公司。
I’ve been working on climate and energy issues for a long time, but the area has become a bigger part of my focus over the last twelve months. I also found time to work on some non-foundation and non-climate related areas, like Alzheimer’s research and expanding free educational resources for teachers.
我已经在气候和能源问题上工作了很长时间，但是在过去的12个月里，这个领域已经成为我关注的重点。我还抽出时间在一些非基础和非气候相关的领域工作，比如阿尔茨海默氏症的研究和为教师扩大免费教育资源。
Even though I think the things I’ve been working on are by far the most interesting part of my year, I know a lot of people are curious about a subject closer to home: my divorce. Melinda and I continue to run our foundation together and have found a good new working rhythm, but I can’t deny that it’s been a year of great personal sadness for me. Adapting to change is never easy, no matter what it is. I’ve been impressed by how resilient my loved ones—especially my kids—have been in this challenging time.
尽管我认为我一直在做的事情是我这一年中最有趣的部分，但我知道很多人都对离家很近的一个话题感到好奇: 我的离婚。梅琳达和我继续一起管理我们的基金会，并且找到了一个新的工作节奏，但是我不能否认这是我个人悲伤的一年。适应变化从来都不是一件容易的事情，不管是什么。在这个充满挑战的时期，我的亲人——尤其是我的孩子——表现得如此坚韧，这给我留下了深刻印象。
My family also experienced a lot of changes beyond what you probably saw in the news. My oldest daughter, Jenn, got married this fall, and her wedding was the highlight of my year. Our youngest, Phoebe, graduated from high school and went off to college. Since my son Rory is also away at school, that means I’m officially an empty nester. The house is a lot quieter without a bunch of teenagers hanging around all the time. I miss having them at home, even if it is easier to focus on reading a book or getting work done these days.
我的家庭也经历了很多变化，超出了你可能在新闻中看到的。我的大女儿，珍，今年秋天结婚了，她的婚礼是我一年中最精彩的部分。我们最小的女儿菲比高中毕业后上了大学。因为我儿子罗里也在上学，这意味着我正式成为一个空巢老人。如果没有一群青少年在周围闲逛，这个房子会安静很多。我怀念家里有他们的日子，即使这些日子更容易专注于阅读或完成工作。
2021 has been a year of big transitions for me, but it hasn’t changed why I love the work I do. As it comes to a close, I wanted to sit down and write about four things that are top of mind heading into 2022: the latest progress toward ending the COVID-19 pandemic, why decreased trust in institutions might be the biggest obstacle standing in our way, what the climate conversation can teach us about making progress, and how the rapid digitization brought on by the pandemic will shape our future.
2021年对我来说是一个巨大的转变的一年，但它并没有改变我为什么热爱我的工作。接近尾声的时候，我想坐下来，写下2022年我最关心的4件事: 结束2019冠状病毒疾病流行病的最新进展，为什么对机构的信任减少可能是我们前进道路上的最大障碍，气候对话可以教会我们如何取得进展，以及流行病带来的快速数字化将如何塑造我们的未来。
Why I’m hopeful the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is finally in sight为什么我希望2019冠状病毒疾病病毒的流行终于在望
In my previous end-of-year post, I wrote that I thought we’d be able to look back and say that 2021 was an improvement on 2020. While I do think that’s true in some ways—billions of people have been vaccinated against COVID-19, and the world is somewhat closer to normal—the improvement hasn’t been as dramatic as I hoped. More people died from COVID in 2021 than in 2020. If you’re one of the millions of people who lost a loved one to the virus over the last twelve months, you certainly don’t think this year was any better than last.
在我之前的年终报告中，我写道，我认为我们可以回顾过去，说2021年比2020年有所改善。虽然我确实认为在某些方面这是正确的---- 数十亿人已经接种了2019冠状病毒疾病疫苗，而且世界在某种程度上已经接近正常---- 但这种改善并没有像我希望的那样引人注目。2021年死于疟疾的人数比2020年还要多。如果你是过去12个月里因病毒而失去亲人的数百万人中的一员，你肯定不会认为今年比去年有任何好转。
Because of the Delta variant and challenges with vaccine uptake, we’re not as close to the end of the pandemic as I hoped by now. I didn’t foresee that such a highly transmissible variant would come along, and I underestimated how tough it would be to convince people to take the vaccine and continue to use masks.
由于德尔塔变异和疫苗接种的挑战，我们并没有像我希望的那样接近大流行的结束。我没有预见到这种高传染性变异会出现，而且我低估了说服人们接种疫苗并继续使用口罩的难度。
I am hopeful, though, that the end is finally in sight. It might be foolish to make another prediction, but I think the acute phase of the pandemic will come to a close some time in 2022.
尽管如此，我还是满怀希望，希望终点终于在望。做出另一个预测可能是愚蠢的，但我认为大流行的急性期将在2022年的某个时候结束。
Employees practice safety procedures at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Thailand. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/Getty Images)
在泰国的 Suvarnabhumi International Airport，员工们在实践安全程序
A barista announces the reopening of her coffee shop. (Getty Images)
一位咖啡师宣布她的咖啡店重新开业
Employees practice safety procedures at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Thailand. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/Getty Images)
在泰国的 Suvarnabhumi International Airport，员工们在实践安全程序
A barista announces the reopening of her coffee shop. (Getty Images)
一位咖啡师宣布她的咖啡店重新开业
There’s no question that the Omicron variant is concerning. Researchers—including a network called GIISER that is supported by our foundation—are working urgently to learn more about it, and we’ll have a lot more information (like how well vaccines or previous infection protect you against it) soon. But here’s what we do know: The world is better prepared to tackle potentially bad variants than at any other point in the pandemic so far. We caught this variant earlier than we discovered Delta because South Africa has invested heavily in genomic sequencing capabilities, and we’re in a much better position to create updated vaccines if they’re needed.
毫无疑问，欧米克戎的变种是令人担忧的。研究人员——包括我们基金会支持的一个名为 GIISER 的网络——正在紧急开展工作，以便更多地了解这种疾病，我们很快就会得到更多信息(比如疫苗或以前的感染对你的免疫力有多强)。但是我们知道的是: 世界比以往任何时候都更有准备应对潜在的坏基因变异。我们发现这种变异的时间比我们发现 Delta 的时间要早，因为南非在基因组测序能力上投入了大量资金，而且如果需要的话，我们在制造更新的疫苗方面处于更有利的地位。
It’s troubling any time a new variant of concern emerges, but I’m still hopeful that, at some point next year, COVID-19 will become an endemic disease in most places. Although it is currently about 10 times more lethal than flu, vaccines and antivirals could cut that number by half or more. Communities will still see occasional outbreaks, but new drugs will be available that could take care of most cases and hospitals will be able to handle the rest. Your individual risk level will be low enough that you won’t need to factor it into your decision-making as much. It won’t be primary when deciding whether to work from the office or let your kids go to their soccer game or watch a movie in a theater. In a couple years, my hope is that the only time you will really have to think about the virus is when you get your joint COVID and flu vaccine every fall.
任何时候出现一种新的担忧都令人不安，但我仍然希望，在明年的某个时候，2019冠状病毒疾病将成为大多数地方的地方病。虽然目前它的致命性是流感的10倍，但疫苗和抗病毒药物可以将这个数字减少一半或更多。社区仍然会偶尔看到疫情爆发，但是新的药物可以治疗大多数病例，而医院将能够处理其余的病例。你的个人风险水平将会很低，以至于你不需要在做决定的时候考虑太多。在决定是否在办公室工作、是否让孩子去看足球比赛、是否让孩子去电影院看电影时，这些都不是首要问题。几年后，我希望你真正需要考虑这种病毒的唯一时间是每年秋天你接种 COVID 和流感联合疫苗的时候。
Now that we’re starting to move towards the end of this pandemic, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what went right and what went wrong over the last two years. We can learn important lessons from the world’s COVID-19 response that will make us better prepared next time.
现在我们已经开始接近这场流行病的结束，我花了很多时间思考过去两年里哪些是对的，哪些是错的。我们可以从世界2019冠状病毒疾病的反应中学到重要的教训，这将使我们下次准备得更好。
Even though the pandemic has dragged on longer than anticipated, a lot has gone well. To start, the progress we’ve made on vaccines is remarkable. The world has never made and distributed a vaccine for a disease faster than it did for COVID-19. The fact that we had one—let alone multiple!—vaccines during the first year of the pandemic is miraculous. That success is a tribute to how many candidates the world had in the pipeline. Vaccine development relies on a little bit of luck, and we hedged our bets by trying so many different approaches.
尽管大流行的持续时间比预期的要长，但很多事情都进展顺利。首先，我们在疫苗方面取得的进展是显著的。世界从来没有像20世纪90年代2019冠状病毒疾病那样，以如此快的速度制造和分发疫苗。在大流行的第一年，我们拥有一种(更不用说多种)疫苗，这是一个奇迹。这一成功归功于世界上有多少候选人在候选名单上。疫苗的开发依赖于一点点运气，我们通过尝试这么多不同的方法来对冲我们的赌注。
I think mRNA vaccines will ultimately be seen as the most consequential breakthrough of the pandemic. Proving that mRNA works as a vaccine platform has been a massive gamechanger—not just for this pandemic, but for the next one too. Now that mRNA is well-established, we’ll be able to develop safe and effective vaccines super-fast in the future.
我认为信使核糖核酸疫苗最终将被视为大流行最重要的突破。证明信使核糖核酸作为疫苗平台的作用是一个巨大的颠覆性事件ーー不仅仅是这次大流行，下一次也是如此。现在信使核糖核酸已经建立，我们将能够在未来超快速地开发出安全有效的疫苗。
We also learned a lot about non-pharmaceutical interventions (or NPIs) that will inform disease response moving forward. NPIs include things like mask mandates, quarantine procedures, and travel restrictions. The last two years have given us the opportunity to see how effective different strategies are against a respiratory disease like COVID. Next time, the world will be ready to deploy cheap and easy tools like masks much quicker, and governments will have a greater understanding of when and how to deploy more burdensome strategies like lockdowns.
我们也学到了很多关于非药物干预(或 npi) ，将告知疾病反应向前推进。非营利性医疗机构包括口罩规定、检疫程序和旅行限制。在过去的两年里，我们有机会看到不同的战略对付像 ovid 这样的唿吸系统疾病是多么有效。下一次，世界将准备更快地部署廉价和简单的工具，比如口罩，政府将更加了解何时以及如何部署更多繁琐的战略，比如封锁。
A community health worker speaks with families about COVID-19 prevention in Afghanistan.
一名社区卫生工作者在阿富汗向家庭讲述2019冠状病毒疾病预防工作。
Students participate in an outdoor class in India. (Majority World/Getty Images)
在印度，学生们正在参加一个户外课程
A community health worker speaks with families about COVID-19 prevention in Afghanistan.
一名社区卫生工作者在阿富汗向家庭讲述2019冠状病毒疾病预防工作。
Students participate in an outdoor class in India. (Majority World/Getty Images)
在印度，学生们正在参加一个户外课程
A sign urges drivers to stay home during the early days of the pandemic. (Asurobson/Getty Images)
一个标志敦促司机在疫情爆发初期呆在家里
Catholic nuns prepare face masks for community distribution in Lusaka, Zambia.
卢萨卡，天主教修女准备在社区分发口罩。
A sign urges drivers to stay home during the early days of the pandemic. (Asurobson/Getty Images)
一个标志敦促司机在疫情爆发初期呆在家里
Catholic nuns prepare face masks for community distribution in Lusaka, Zambia.
卢萨卡，天主教修女准备在社区分发口罩。
Although stopping a pandemic is something that ultimately falls on systems and governments, the last two years have shown us that individuals can make a real impact. We’ve seen incredible people from around the world step up to do heroic work protecting their communities—from teachers who took time to drop off class materials on their students’ doorsteps to health workers who went house to house making sure everyone had the opportunity to get vaccinated. I wrote a separate post profiling several of those heroes from the African continent. You can read about them here.
虽然阻止流行病最终要靠系统和政府，但过去两年已经向我们表明，个人可以产生真正的影响。我们看到来自世界各地令人难以置信的人们站出来，英勇地保护他们的社区ーー从花时间在学生家门口放下课堂材料的老师，到挨家挨户确保每个人都有机会接种疫苗的卫生工作者。我写了一篇单独的文章，介绍了几位来自非洲大陆的英雄。你可以在这里了解他们。
One area that’s been a mixed bag is therapeutics. Up until the last couple of months, I was disappointed by the lack of progress we’d made on the treatment front. Remdesivir is expensive, and it just didn’t have that big an effect. Dexamethasone is cheaper and helped a bit, but not enough to make a huge dent in stopping disease early. Monoclonal antibodies—which I was quite optimistic about at one point—were too complicated logistically to get out and save that many people earlier in the pandemic, and they weren’t very effective against variants.
治疗学是一个好坏参半的领域。直到最近几个月，我对我们在治疗方面缺乏进展感到失望。雷姆德斯维尔很贵，而且没有那么大的影响。地塞米松更便宜，也有一点帮助，但不足以在早期阻止疾病方面产生巨大的影响。单克隆抗体——我曾一度对此相当乐观——在逻辑上过于复杂，无法在大流行早期发现并拯救那么多人，而且它们对变异并不十分有效。
The reason I’m now feeling much better about therapeutics is the recent news about two new antiviral drugs. These are the therapeutics we needed in 2020. One of them—a drug called molnupiravir from Merck—just got the seal of approval from the FDA for people at high-risk last week. It significantly reduces your chances of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 (although not as much as we’d initially hoped), it’s relatively cheap to make, and it’s an oral medication that’s easy to distribute.
我现在对治疗学感觉好多了的原因是最近有两种新的抗病毒药物的消息。这些就是我们在2020年所需要的疗法。其中一种药物——默克公司生产的一种名为 molnupiravir 的药物——上周刚刚获得美国食品药品监督管理局(FDA)对高危人群的批准。它能显著降低你因2019冠状病毒疾病而住院或死亡的几率(虽然没有我们最初希望的那么多) ，制造成本相对低廉，而且是一种易于分发的口服药物。
Earlier this year, before we knew the drug worked, the foundation supported an effort to streamline the process of producing molnupiravir in order to bring costs down. Merck is letting generic manufacturers make this simplified formulation, which will make the drug accessible to a lot more people. We also recently committed $120 million to making sure the drug is available in lower-income countries where it will save a lot of lives. I just wish it had come along sooner.
今年早些时候，在我们知道这种药物有效之前，该基金会支持了一项旨在简化 molnupiravir 生产过程以降低成本的努力。默克公司正在让仿制药生产商制造这种简化配方，这将使更多的人能够获得这种药物。我们最近还承诺提供1.2亿美元，以确保在低收入国家提供这种药物，这种药物将拯救许多生命。我只是希望它能早点到来。
The area I see as the biggest disappointment is the inequity of vaccine allocation. This is something I’ve written about at length and something I’m going to keep talking about any chance I get, because it didn’t have to be this way. The world has done an outstanding job manufacturing and distributing billions of doses of vaccine, but the fact that so few people at high risk in low-income countries have received them is unacceptable. It just doesn’t make sense that so many low-risk people got vaccinated before we reached everyone who’s older or had an underlying medical condition. Moving forward, we need to change how the world allocates doses and find ways to ramp up manufacturing even faster, including by expanding global vaccine-making capacity and helping more countries develop, manufacture, and approve vaccines themselves.
我认为最令人失望的是疫苗分配的不公平。这是我已经写了很长时间的东西，我会一直谈论任何机会，因为它不必这样。世界在制造和分发数十亿剂疫苗方面做了出色的工作，但低收入国家中很少有高危人群接种疫苗的事实是不可接受的。在我们接触到每个老年人或有潜在疾病的人之前，这么多低风险人群接种了疫苗，这是没有意义的。展望未来，我们需要改变世界分配疫苗剂量的方式，找到加快制造速度的方法，包括扩大全球疫苗制造能力，帮助更多国家自己开发、制造和批准疫苗。
The other area where there is huge room for improvement is in finding ways to combat disinformation. As I mentioned, I thought demand for vaccines would be way higher than it has been in places like the United States. It’s clear that disinformation (including conspiracy theories that unfortunately involve me) is having a substantial impact on people’s willingness to get vaccinated. This is part of a larger trend toward distrust in institutions, and it’s one of the issues I’m most worried about heading into 2022.
另一个有巨大改进空间的领域是找到打击虚假信息的方法。正如我所提到的，我认为疫苗的需求将远远高于像美国这样的地方。很明显，虚假信息(包括不幸涉及我的阴谋论)对人们接种疫苗的意愿产生了实质性影响。这是对制度不信任的更大趋势的一部分，也是我对2022年最担心的问题之一。
I’ve had a lot of people ask me recently if I’m still optimistic about the future. While the answer is yes, being an optimist doesn’t mean ignoring problems. I am deeply troubled by one challenge in particular.
最近有很多人问我是否还对未来持乐观态度。虽然答案是肯定的，但是乐观主义者并不意味着忽视问题。我对一个特别的挑战深感不安。
The pandemic has been a massive test of governance. When the pandemic finally comes to an end, it will be a tribute to the power of global cooperation and innovation. At the same time, this era has shown us how declining trust in public institutions is creating tangible problems and complicating our efforts to respond to challenges. Based on what I’ve seen over the last couple of years, I’m more worried than I’ve ever been about the ability of governments to get big things done.
这场大流行是对治理的一次巨大考验。当这一流行病最终结束时，它将是对全球合作与创新力量的赞扬。与此同时，这一时代向我们表明，对公共机构的信任下降正在造成实际问题，并使我们应对挑战的努力复杂化。基于过去几年我所看到的情况，我比以往任何时候都更担心政府是否有能力完成大事。
We need governments to take action if we’re going to make progress on challenges like avoiding a climate disaster or preventing the next pandemic. But declining trust makes it harder for them to be effective. If your people don’t trust you, they’re not going to support major new initiatives. And when a major crisis emerges, they’re less likely to follow guidance necessary to weather the storm.
我们需要各国政府采取行动，如果我们要在避免气候灾难或防止下一次大流行等挑战上取得进展。但是信任度的下降使得他们更难发挥作用。如果你的员工不信任你，他们就不会支持重大的新举措。当一场重大危机出现时，他们不太可能遵循必要的指导来度过这场风暴。
This decline in trust is happening all over the world. The 2021 Edelman Trust Index shows worrying drops across the globe. Part of it is understandable: Any time you have a really big crisis like a pandemic, people look for someone to blame. Governments are an obvious target.
这种信任的下降正在世界各地发生。2021年爱德曼信任指数显示，全球范围内的信任指数出现了令人担忧的下降。部分原因是可以理解的: 任何时候当你遇到像大流行这样的大危机时，人们都会寻找一个替罪羊。政府是一个明显的目标。
But this trend toward less trust in government didn’t start in 2020. The pandemic only made clearer what had already been happening.
但是这种对政府信任减少的趋势并不是在2020年开始的。大流行病只是使已经发生的情况更加清楚。
(XKCD.com) (xkcd. com)
So, who or what is to blame? It’s clear that increased polarization is a significant driver. This is especially evident here in the United States, although we’re far from alone. Americans are becoming more divided and more deeply entrenched in their political beliefs. The gap between the left and the right is becoming a gulf that’s harder and harder to bridge.
那么，谁或者什么该受到责备呢？显然，日益严重的两极分化是一个重要的驱动因素。这一点在美国尤其明显，尽管我们并不孤单。美国人正变得越来越分裂，他们的政治信仰也越来越根深蒂固。左派和右派之间的鸿沟正在变成一个越来越难以弥合的鸿沟。
There are many reasons for this growing divide, including a 24-hour news cycle, a political climate that rewards headline generation over substantive debate, and the rise of social media. I’m especially interested in understanding the latter, since it’s the most technologically driven.
造成这种日益严重的分歧有很多原因，包括24小时不间断的新闻周期、奖励新闻头条人物而非实质性辩论的政治氛围，以及社交媒体的兴起。我对后者尤其感兴趣，因为它是最受技术驱动的。
Digital communication has profound benefits in terms of helping people collaborate, stay in touch, and share things with each other. But social media has played a huge role in spreading misinformation that makes people suspicious of their governments. Social media feeds have become so personalized that you don't see factual information if it doesn't align with your profile.
数字通信在帮助人们合作、保持联系和彼此分享方面有着深远的好处。但是社交媒体在传播错误信息方面扮演了巨大的角色，这些错误信息使人们怀疑他们的政府。社交媒体订阅已经变得非常个性化，如果它与你的个人资料不一致，你就看不到真实的信息。
I believe that governments need to regulate what you can and can’t use social media for. In the United States, this topic has raised a lot of free speech questions. But the reality is that our government already has all sorts of norms around communication.
我相信政府需要规范你可以和不可以使用社交媒体的行为。在美国，这个话题引起了许多关于言论自由的问题。但现实是，我们的政府已经有了各种各样的沟通规范。
You can’t slander someone or trick them out of their money by promising something you don’t deliver on. Network TV shows can’t show explicit sex scenes or use certain profane language before 10 p.m. in case children are watching. These rules exist to protect people. So why couldn’t our government create new rules to protect them from the most tangible harms created by social media? They wouldn’t be easy to enforce, and we’d need public debate about exactly where the lines should be, but this is doable and really important to get done. A video falsely claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine makes you infertile should not be allowed to spread widely under the guise of being news.
你不能通过承诺你没有兑现的东西来诽谤别人或者骗走他们的钱。网络电视节目不能在晚上10点之前播放露骨的性爱场面或使用某些粗俗的语言，以防孩子们看到。这些规则的存在是为了保护人们。那么，为什么我们的政府不能制定新的规则来保护他们免受社交媒体带来的最明显的伤害呢？它们不容易执行，我们需要公开讨论界限到底应该在哪里，但这是可行的，而且完成起来真的很重要。一个错误地声称2019冠状病毒疾病疫苗使你不育的视频不应该被允许在新闻的幌子下广泛传播。
As people become more polarized on both sides of the aisle, politicians are incentivized to take increasingly extreme positions. In the past, if you didn’t like the way a government agency was operating, you’d run on a platform of fixing it. Today, we’re seeing more people get elected on the promise of abandoning institutions and norms outright.
随着两党人士的意见越来越两极化，政客们受到激励，采取越来越极端的立场。在过去，如果你不喜欢一个政府机构的运作方式，你就会在一个修正它的平台上运行。今天，我们看到越来越多的人在承诺完全放弃制度和规范的前提下当选。
When your government leaders are the ones telling you not to trust government, who are you supposed to believe? This creates a compounding effect where people lose confidence in government, elect politicians who share their distrust, and then become even more disillusioned as their leaders tell them how bad the institutions they now run are.
当你的政府领导人告诉你不要相信政府时，你应该相信谁？这造成了一种复合效应: 人们对政府失去信心，选举出与他们有同样不信任感的政治家，然后当他们的领导人告诉他们他们现在运行的机构有多糟糕时，他们变得更加失望。
This is usually where I’d lay out my ideas for how we fix the problem. The truth is, I don’t have the answers. I plan to keep seeking out and reading others’ ideas, especially from young people. I’m hopeful that the generations who grew up online will have fresh ideas about how to tackle a problem that is so deeply rooted in the Internet.
这通常是我提出我们如何解决问题的想法的地方。事实是，我没有答案。我计划继续寻找和阅读他人的想法，尤其是年轻人的想法。我希望从小在网上长大的那一代人对于如何解决这个深深植根于互联网的问题会有新的想法。
This problem requires more than just innovation to solve, although there are some steps we can take (especially around e-governance and making data more available to the public) to make modest improvements. There are all sorts of ways that great scientific ideas get published and tested. For great political ideas, the pathways are not as clear. Thinktanks and academics can point in the right direction, but at the end of the day—in a democracy at least—it seems to me like you need to pick the right leaders and give them the space to try new ideas.
这个问题需要的不仅仅是创新，尽管我们可以采取一些步骤(特别是围绕电子政务和向公众提供更多数据)进行适度的改进。有各种各样的方式，伟大的科学想法得到发表和测试。对于伟大的政治理念来说，其路径并不那么清晰。智库和学者可以指出正确的方向，但最终(至少在一个民主国家) ，在我看来，你似乎需要选择正确的领导人，给他们尝试新想法的空间。
There’s a phrase we like to use at the foundation: Progress is possible, but not inevitable. Change happens because groups of people get together and decide to make things better. It might not happen as quickly as you want or need it. But if you have enough smart, thoughtful, and passionate people pushing for it, progress will eventually come.
我们喜欢在基金会使用一句话: 进步是可能的，但不是不可避免的。改变之所以发生，是因为一群人聚在一起，决定让事情变得更好。它可能不会像你想要或需要的那么快。但是，如果你有足够聪明、有思想、有热情的人推动它，进步最终会到来。
I was reminded of this at the recent COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. The climate conversation is often singled out as an area stymied by disagreement. In the past, there was a lot of debate about whether we had all the tools we needed to solve this problem. Now, there's a lot more agreement that we have some of what we need, but not all of it—and that we need to prioritize closing that gap if we’re going to avoid a climate disaster.
最近在苏格兰格拉斯哥举行的 cop26气候会议上，我被提醒了这一点。气候问题的讨论常常被单独挑出来，认为这是一个受到分歧阻碍的领域。在过去，对于我们是否拥有解决这个问题所需的所有工具，有很多争论。现在，我们已经达成了更多的共识，即我们拥有一些我们需要的东西，但不是全部，如果我们要避免气候灾难，我们需要优先缩小这一差距。
I was blown away by the enthusiasm and intense engagement in Glasgow, especially compared to the last major COP conference in 2015. Everywhere you looked, you saw leaders from around the world—including lots of government officials and CEOs—eager to make real commitments.
我被格拉斯哥的热情和紧张的参与震惊了，特别是与2015年的上一次重要的 COP 会议相比。无论你走到哪里，都能看到来自世界各地的领导人——包括许多政府官员和首席执行官——都渴望做出真正的承诺。
The biggest change I saw compared to 2015 was the focus on innovation. There is now a broad understanding that innovation needs to be at the forefront of any plan to get to zero emissions by 2050. The private sector is playing a central and necessary role alongside governments and nonprofits. It was encouraging to hear leaders from various industries that need to be part of the transition—including shipping, mining, and financial services—talk about their practical plans to decarbonize and to support innovation.
与2015年相比，我看到的最大变化是对创新的关注。现在人们普遍认识到，任何到2050年实现零排放的计划都必须把创新放在首位。私营部门与政府和非营利组织一起发挥着核心和必要的作用。听到包括航运、采矿和金融服务业在内的各行各业的领导人谈论他们脱碳和支持创新的实际计划，令人鼓舞。
I spent a lot of time at the conference talking to people about how new green technologies need to be affordable enough for the whole world to use them. If we’re going to scale the innovations that get us to zero, we need to reduce the cost difference between things that emit greenhouse gases and things that don’t. I call this difference the Green Premium, and addressing it needs to be an essential part of any climate plan.
在会议上，我花了很多时间与人们讨论新的绿色技术如何需要让全世界都能负担得起才能使用。如果我们要扩大创新规模，实现零排放，我们需要降低温室气体排放物和非温室气体排放物之间的成本差异。我把这种差异称为绿色溢价，解决这个问题需要成为任何气候计划的重要组成部分。
I was also excited to see so much attention paid to adaptation. We will lose the global fight against poverty if we don’t help the world’s poorest adapt to climate change, especially subsistence farmers who rely on the food they grow to feed their families and are the most at risk. Even if the world hits its goal of net-zero by 2050, we’ll still experience significant warming. That will create huge problems for people in low- and middle-income countries unless we take steps now to help them, such as developing new crops that are more productive and can withstand weather changes.
我也很高兴看到如此多的注意力放在适应上。如果我们不帮助世界上最贫穷的人适应气候变化，特别是那些依靠自己种植的粮食养家糊口的自给自足的农民，他们面临的风险最大，那么我们将失去全球抗击贫困的斗争。即使到2050年世界达到净零排放的目标，我们仍将经历严重的变暖。这将给中低收入国家的人民带来巨大问题，除非我们现在就采取措施帮助他们，例如开发生产力更高、能够承受气候变化的新作物。
In short, this conference made it clear that the world is engaged and making progress. The result was a number of important concrete steps, like new commitments to investing in clean technologies, pledges to cut methane emissions and end deforestation by the end of the decade, and the creation of a coalition that will help farmers adapt.
简而言之，这次会议清楚地表明，世界正在参与并取得进展。结果产生了一系列重要的具体步骤，比如投资清洁技术的新承诺，承诺在2020年之前减少甲烷排放和结束森林砍伐，以及建立一个帮助农民适应环境的联盟。
None of this happened by accident. The improvements made over recent years are a testament to the activists, elected officials, business leaders, philanthropists, and engaged citizens fighting to move climate change up the global agenda. We still have a lot more work to do—even if every commitment made at the COP is fulfilled, we still won’t hit our target of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees—and I hope the world builds on the progress made in Glasgow. But I’m optimistic that we have the momentum necessary to avoid a climate disaster.
这一切都不是偶然发生的。近年来所取得的进步证明了积极分子、民选官员、商业领袖、慈善家以及积极参与将气候变化问题提上全球议程的公民。我们还有很多工作要做ーー即使在缔约方会议上作出的每一项承诺都得到履行，我们仍然无法实现将全球升温控制在2摄氏度以内的目标ーー我希望世界能在格拉斯哥取得的进展基础上再接再厉。但我乐观地认为，我们有必要的动力来避免气候灾难。
2021 gave us a preview of our more digitized future2021年给了我们一个更加数字化的未来的预览
Even after this pandemic ends, it’s clear that much of the digitization it brought on is here to stay. The last two years have led to monumental leaps forward in how we use technology, accelerating changes that would’ve taken years—if not a decade or longer—otherwise. We’ve seen rapid, widespread adoption of services that already existed, like ordering groceries online or having meetings over video chat. And we’ve seen the creation of new innovations that I think only represent the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come in the years ahead.
即使在这场大流行结束之后，很明显，它带来的大部分数字化仍将继续。过去两年，我们在使用技术方面取得了巨大的飞跃，加速了原本需要数年时间(如果不是10年或更长时间的话)的变革。我们看到已经存在的服务得到了迅速、广泛的应用，比如在网上订购食品杂货或者通过视频聊天进行会议。我们已经看到了新的创新，我认为这仅仅代表了未来几年的冰山一角。
Digitization is here to stay, but the technologies we’re using will continue to get better over time. We’re just at the start of how software will enable innovation. The more we use digital tools, the more feedback we get about how to make them better. It’ll take at least a decade to understand the full scope of the pandemic’s impact on digitization, but I predict we’ll see big changes in three areas.
数字化将继续存在，但是我们正在使用的技术将会随着时间的推移而不断进步。我们只是刚刚开始软件如何促进创新。我们使用的数字工具越多，我们得到的关于如何使它们更好的反馈就越多。我们至少需要十年的时间才能全面了解这场大流行病对数字化的影响，但我预计我们将在三个领域看到巨大的变化。
The first and perhaps most significant is office work. The pandemic has revolutionized how companies think about productivity and presence in the workplace. The boundaries between once-discrete areas of work—brainstorming, team meetings, casual conversations in the hallway—are collapsing. We’re starting to see structures evolve that we thought were essential to office culture, and those changes will only intensify in the years to come as businesses and employees settle into new permanent ways of working.
第一个也许是最重要的是办公室工作。这场流行病彻底改变了公司对生产力和工作场所存在的看法。曾经分散的工作领域——头脑风暴、团队会议、走廊里的闲聊——之间的界限正在瓦解。我们开始看到我们认为对办公室文化至关重要的结构正在演变，随着企业和员工适应新的永久性工作方式，这些变化只会在未来几年加剧。
I’m really excited about the potential for experimentation. Expectations around what productivity looks like have been upended. I see lots of opportunity to rethink things and find out what is working and what isn’t.
我对实验的潜力感到非常兴奋。对于生产率的预期已经被颠覆了。我看到了很多重新思考的机会，找出什么是有效的，什么是无效的。
For example, there has been a lot of debate about whether companies should stay completely remote, plan a full return to the office, or find some compromise between the two. Although most companies will likely opt for the hybrid approach, there’s a good deal of flexibility around what exactly that approach might look like. What if your employees set their own schedule? Do you have people work from the office on Mondays and Fridays, or do you ask them to work remotely on those days knowing that traffic might be worse around the weekend?
例如，关于公司是否应该完全保持距离，计划完全回到办公室，或者在两者之间找到某种妥协，一直存在很多争论。尽管大多数公司可能会选择混合方法，但是这种方法的具体内容还是有很大的灵活性。如果你的员工自己制定日程表会怎么样？你是让员工在周一和周五在办公室工作，还是让他们在周末远程工作，因为他们知道交通状况可能更糟？
I don’t see any reason why companies need to make firm decisions right away. As the pandemic ends and things start to become more normal, this is a great time to take an A/B testing approach to remote work. Maybe you have one team try one configuration while a different team tries another, so that you can compare the results and find the right balance for everyone.
我认为没有任何理由要求公司立即做出决定。随着大流行的结束，事情开始变得更加正常，这是一个采取 a/b 测试方法进行远程工作的大好时机。也许你让一个团队尝试一种配置，而另一个团队尝试另一种配置，这样你就可以比较结果，找到适合每个人的平衡点。
(It’s worth repeating that I’m talking about office jobs. The pandemic disrupted work in virtually every industry. There are huge sectors of the economy where things won’t change as much or will change in different ways from what I’m describing here.)
(值得一提的是，我说的是办公室工作。这场流行病几乎扰乱了每个行业的工作。在经济的很多部门，情况不会发生太大的变化，或者会以不同于我在这里所描述的方式发生变化。)
I’m also really interested in how technology can create more spontaneity with remote work moving forward.
我也很感兴趣的是，随着远程工作的推进，科技如何能够创造出更多的自发性。
This is the biggest thing you lose when you’re not in the office. Let’s say you used to work in an open space with six other people. You could look up at any time and see what they were up to. You could tell whether they felt like talking, giving you advice, or just taking a break to chat about non-work stuff. That kind of spontaneous interaction stopped when many of us began working from home—you aren’t exactly going to have an unplanned conversation with a colleague about your last meeting in your living room. But there are a lot of innovations in the pipeline to replicate that experience at home.
当你不在办公室的时候，这是你失去的最大的东西。假设你曾经和其他六个人在一个开放的空间里工作。你可以随时抬头看看他们在干什么。你可以分辨出他们是想聊天，给你建议，还是只是想休息一下，聊聊非工作的事情。当我们中的许多人开始在家工作时，这种自发的互动就停止了。你不可能和同事就你上次在客厅开会的事情进行计划外的谈话。但是在国内还有很多创新可以复制这种经验。
If you had a second screen that was very cheap and a physical place to put it, you could have a feed of all six of you sitting in your home offices working. You could look at the screen to see what everyone is doing (except when someone wants privacy and turns the camera off). When someone seems like they’re free to talk, you could just click on their video, zoom in, and start chatting. This isn’t radically different from how collaboration tools work today, and it’s something we have the bandwidth and software power to do now.
如果你有一个非常便宜的第二屏幕和一个实际的地方来放置它，你可以有一个你们六个人坐在你的家庭办公室工作的饲料。你可以通过屏幕看到每个人在做什么(除非有人想要隐私并关掉摄像头)。当某人似乎可以自由交谈时，你可以点击他们的视频，放大，然后开始聊天。这与当今协作工具的工作方式并没有根本的不同，这是我们现在拥有的带宽和软件能力所能做到的。
I think we’ll soon start to see an even bigger shift. People shouldn’t assume that the quality of the software that lets you have virtual experiences will stay the same. The acceleration of innovation is just starting.
我认为我们很快就会看到一个更大的转变。人们不应该认为让你拥有虚拟体验的软件的质量会保持不变。创新的加速才刚刚开始。
Within the next two or three years, I predict most virtual meetings will move from 2D camera image grids—which I call the Hollywood Squares model, although I know that probably dates me—to the metaverse, a 3D space with digital avatars. Both Facebook and Microsoft recently unveiled their visions for this, which gave most people their first view of what it will look like.
我预计，在未来两三年内，大多数虚拟会议将从2d 摄像机图像网格(我称之为好莱坞方块模型，尽管我知道这可能会让我的时间推迟)转移到 metaverse，一个拥有数字化身的3d 空间。和微软最近都公布了他们的愿景，这让大多数人第一次看到了它的样子。
The idea is that you will eventually use your avatar to meet with people in a virtual space that replicates the feeling of being in an actual room with them. To do this, you’ll need something like VR goggles and motion capture gloves to accurately capture your expressions, body language, and the quality of your voice. Most people don’t own these tools yet, which will slow adoption somewhat. (One of the things that enabled the rapid change to video meetings was the fact that many people already had PCs or phones with cameras.) Microsoft plans to roll out an interim version next year, which uses your webcam to animate an avatar that’s used in the current 2D set-up.
这个想法是，你最终将使用你的虚拟形象在一个虚拟空间中与人们见面，这个虚拟空间复制了与他们在一个真实的房间中的感觉。要做到这一点，你需要像 VR 护目镜和动作捕捉手套，以准确捕捉你的表情，身体语言，和你的声音质量。大多数人还没有拥有这些工具，这会在一定程度上延缓人们对这些工具的采用。(视频会议迅速发展的原因之一是，许多人已经有了带摄像头的个人电脑或手机
。)微软计划明年推出一个临时版本，使用你的网络摄像头来动画一个在当前2d 设置中使用的化身。
I had a lot of fun trying out a 3D avatar earlier this year.今年早些时候，我尝试了一个3 d 头像，感觉很有趣。
There are a ton of companies working on 3D avatars, and I recently had the opportunity to test out some of their prototypes. I was super impressed by what I saw. One of the biggest improvements over what we use now is the use of spatial audio, where speech sounds like it’s actually coming from the direction of the person talking. You don’t realize how unusual it is to have meeting audio only coming from your computer’s speaker until you try something else. There’s still some work to do, but we’re approaching a threshold where the technology begins to truly replicate the experience of being together in the office.
有很多公司都在研究3 d 化身，最近我有机会测试了他们的一些原型。我对我所看到的印象非常深刻。我们现在使用的最大的改进之一是空间音频的使用，语音听起来像是来自说话的人的方向。你没有意识到只有从电脑扬声器中传来的会议音频是多么不寻常，除非你尝试其他的东西。还有一些工作要做，但是我们正在接近一个临界点，在这个临界点上，技术开始真正复制在办公室里一起工作的体验。
The second area where we’ll see the lasting effects of digitization is education. Unlike offices, schools will go back to only in-person instruction except maybe for some limited remote options for older high school students. What will change, though, is how we use digital tools to enhance the way kids learn.
我们将看到数字化的持久影响的第二个领域是教育。与办公室不同，学校将只能回到面授教学，除了一些年纪较大的高中生可以选择的有限的远程教学。然而，改变的是我们如何使用数字工具来提高孩子们的学习方式。
The ability of new digital education tools to transform the classroom is, of course, dependent on kids having access to technology at home. The access gap has narrowed since the start of the pandemic and will continue to narrow, but a lot of kids still don’t have a decent computer or reliable, fast internet at home. Finding ways to expand access is just as important as the development of new innovations.
当然，新的数字教育工具改变课堂的能力取决于孩子们在家里能否接触到技术。自从流行病爆发以来，这种接入差距已经缩小，并将继续缩小，但是许多孩子仍然没有一台像样的电脑，或者在家里没有可靠、快速的互联网。寻找扩大获取渠道的途径与开发新的创新同样重要。
The pandemic accelerated the development of dynamic curricula, as more teachers had to rely on digital tools to give students assignments during the periods when schools were closed. We’re starting to see that curriculum become more responsive as demand goes up, and it will only become more tailored to the individual needs of students and teachers in the years ahead. The intention is that these new tools will supplement classroom learning rather than replace it. (If there’s one thing the last two years made clear, it’s that many kids—especially younger ones—don’t do well sitting in front of a screen doing classwork all day.)
这种流行病加速了动态课程的发展，因为在学校关闭期间，更多的教师不得不依靠数字工具给学生布置作业。我们开始看到，随着需求的增加，课程会变得更加有针对性，在未来的几年里，它只会变得更加适合学生和教师的个人需求。这样做的目的是，这些新工具将补充而不是取代课堂学习。(如果说过去两年中有一件事情是明确的，那就是许多孩子，尤其是年龄较小的孩子，不喜欢整天坐在屏幕前做功课。)
If you’re a student, you’ll be able to get feedback from the software while you do your homework online. The content will be more interactive and personalized to you, helping you focus on areas where you need a bit more help while boosting your confidence by giving you problems you’re more comfortable solving.
如果你是一个学生，你可以在网上做作业的时候从软件中得到反馈。这些内容对你来说将更具互动性和个性化，帮助你专注于你需要更多帮助的领域，同时通过给你更舒适的解决问题来增强你的信心。
A college student does homework on her laptop. (Carol Yepes/Getty Images)
一个大学生在她的笔记本电脑上做作业
A teacher records himself explaining a math problem to his students in Jilin, China. (TPG/Getty Images)
在中国吉林，一位老师正在向他的学生解释一道数学题
A college student does homework on her laptop. (Carol Yepes/Getty Images)
一个大学生在她的笔记本电脑上做作业
A teacher records himself explaining a math problem to his students in Jilin, China. (TPG/Getty Images)
在中国吉林，一位老师正在向他的学生解释一道数学题
If you’re a teacher, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how your students are doing. A simple button click will show you that student X might need more help on a particular type of question while telling you that student Y is ready to take on a more advanced reading assignment.
如果你是一名教师，你会对学生的表现有更深入的了解。一个简单的按钮点击将显示你的学生 x 可能需要更多的帮助在一个特定类型的问题，同时告诉你的学生 y 是准备接受一个更高级的阅读作业。
The foundation has been working on innovative new tools like this for years, and it’s been great to see so much progress made over the last two years in response to the pandemic.
该基金会多年来一直致力于这样的创新新工具，在过去两年中，在应对这一流行病方面取得了如此多的进展，我们感到非常高兴。
Some of the biggest leaps forward have been in math curricula. A lot of kids develop a self-image of not being good at math. They struggle with problem sets that are perhaps too hard for their current skill level, and they never catch up as classes become more advanced. It’s a big problem that I’m optimistic we can solve with technology.
一些最大的飞跃是在数学课程上。许多孩子形成了不擅长数学的自我形象。他们要解决的问题对于他们目前的技能水平来说可能太难了，而且他们永远也赶不上课程变得更高级的速度。这是一个大问题，我乐观地认为我们可以用技术来解决。
The foundation is working with partners on new curricula that help kids become more confident in their math skills. I’m so excited about this work—and have so much to say about it—that I wrote a separate post detailing some of the most promising examples. You can read it here.
该基金会正在与合作伙伴合作开发新课程，帮助孩子们对自己的数学技能更加自信。我对这项工作感到非常兴奋，也有很多话要说，所以我写了一篇单独的文章，详细介绍了一些最有前途的例子。你可以在这里阅读。
The final area where digitization is here to stay is in health care. Telehealth isn’t new, but its popularity during the pandemic was. Over the last two years, we’ve seen more people opting for virtual appointments instead of in-person care. The technologies that facilitate these appointments are already getting much better, and I expect huge improvements over time.
数字化的最后一个领域是医疗保健。远程医疗并不是什么新鲜事，但它在年流行期间却很受欢迎。在过去的两年里，我们看到越来越多的人选择虚拟预约，而不是面对面的照顾。促进这些约会的技术已经越来越好了，我期待着随着时间的推移会有巨大的改进。
Although some medical fields have gone back to mostly in-person visits, one area that I predict is forever changed is behavioral health. Virtual appointments have so many upsides that I think the new model is here to stay.
虽然一些医学领域已经回到了大部分是面对面访问的时代，但是我预测有一个领域将永远改变，那就是行为健康。虚拟任命有如此多的好处，以至于我认为这种新模式将继续存在。
Seeing your therapist is a lot less time-consuming and easier to fit in your day when you only have to turn your laptop on. Sessions can be as long or as short as needed—a 15-minute session might not feel worth it if you have to go to a doctor’s office, but it makes a lot more sense from home. Plus, many people feel more comfortable in their own spaces than in a clinical setting.
当你只需要打开你的笔记本电脑的时候，去看你的治疗师就会少花很多时间，而且更容易适应你的一天。治疗时间可长可短，如果你必须去看医生，一次15分钟的治疗可能觉得不值得，但在家里就更有意义了。另外，许多人在自己的空间里比在临床环境中感觉更舒适。
Other types of doctor’s visits might become more flexible as new tools emerge, too. Right now, when it’s time for your annual physical, you probably need to go into your doctor’s office to get your vitals taken and your blood drawn. But what if you had a device at home that your doctor could control remotely to test your blood pressure? What if he or she could look at data collected from your smart watch to see how you’re sleeping and what your active heart rate is? What if you could get your blood tested at a convenient place in your neighborhood—maybe at your local pharmacy—that sends the results directly to your doctor? What if you could keep seeing a primary care physician you like even if you moved to another state?
随着新工具的出现，其他类型的医生就诊可能会变得更加灵活。现在，当你要进行年度体检时，你可能需要去医生的办公室测量你的生命体征并抽取血液。但是如果你家里有一个设备，你的医生可以远程控制它来测试你的血压呢？如果他或她可以看看从你的智能手表收集的数据，看看你是如何睡觉的，你的活跃心率是多少？如果你可以在附近一个方便的地方做血液测试，也许是在当地的药店，结果可以直接送到你的医生那里，那会怎么样？即使你搬到了另一个州，如果你可以继续去看你喜欢的初级保健医生会怎么样？
Health workers pose with a robot that helps with consultations, therapies, and mental health evaluations of COVID-19 patients. (Claudio Crus/Getty Images)
卫生工作者与一个机器人合影，这个机器人帮助2019冠状病毒疾病患者进行咨询、治疗和心理健康评估。(Claudio Crus/Getty Images)
A dad checks his daughter’s temperature while a doctor watches over a video call. (Maskat/Getty Images)
一位父亲正在给女儿量体温，一位医生正在看视频电话
Health workers pose with a robot that helps with consultations, therapies, and mental health evaluations of COVID-19 patients. (Claudio Crus/Getty Images)
卫生工作者与一个机器人合影，这个机器人帮助2019冠状病毒疾病患者进行咨询、治疗和心理健康评估。(Claudio Crus/Getty Images)
A dad checks his daughter’s temperature while a doctor watches over a video call. (Maskat/Getty Images)
一位父亲正在给女儿量体温，一位医生正在看视频电话
These are all real possibilities in the future, and I’m curious to see how they transform health care. Beyond the technology and privacy limits, there are also regulatory hurdles we need to figure out before digital health care becomes truly mainstream. Some states still make it hard to see patients virtually in a different state because of how licensing currently works.
这些都是未来真正的可能性，我很好奇它们如何改变医疗保健。除了技术和隐私限制，在数字化医疗真正成为主流之前，我们还需要解决一些监管障碍。一些州仍然很难看到病人在一个不同的州，因为许可证目前的工作方式。
As unbelievable as it sounds, we’re only starting to see how digitization is going to change our lives. There is so much potential for technology to create more flexibility and options for people. I’m hesitant to suggest that anything about the COVID-19 pandemic has been positive. But when we look back at this period, I suspect history will view it as a time of terrible devastation and loss that also sparked lots of massive changes for the better.
尽管听起来难以置信，但我们才刚刚开始看到数字化将如何改变我们的生活。技术有很大的潜力为人们创造更多的灵活性和选择。我很犹豫是否应该说2019冠状病毒疾病流感大流行的任何事情都是积极的。但是当我们回顾这段时期，我怀疑历史会将其视为一段遭受可怕破坏和损失的时期，这段时期也引发了许多向好的方向发展的巨大变化。
My work has always been driven by a simple idea: The world can get better. A big setback like the pandemic makes it harder to believe that progress is possible. I’m still optimistic, though, about our ability to build a world where everyone has the chance to live a healthy and productive life.
我的工作总是被一个简单的想法所驱动: 世界会变得更好。像大流行病这样的重大挫折使人们更难相信有可能取得进展。尽管如此，我仍然对我们建立一个人人都有机会过上健康和富有成效的生活的世界的能力持乐观态度。
But that ability is dependent on whether we can stop the next pandemic. We can’t afford to repeat the suffering of the last two years. The world had a chance to invest in the tools and systems that could’ve prevented the COVID-19 pandemic, and we didn’t take it. Now is the time to learn from our mistakes and take steps to prevent this terrible experience from ever happening again.
但这种能力取决于我们是否能够阻止下一次大流行。我们不能重复过去两年的痛苦。世界曾有机会投资于本可以预防2019冠状病毒疾病流感大流行的工具和系统，但我们没有抓住。现在是时候从我们的错误中吸取教训，并采取措施防止这种可怕的经历再次发生。
The good news is that the world no longer needs to be persuaded that stopping a pandemic is important. I’m hopeful that we’ll see broad support for pandemic preparedness efforts, and I plan on spending a lot of time advocating for them. This is the biggest and most important thing I’m going to work on in 2022. I’m currently writing a book that will come out some time next year, which lays out my plan for making sure that COVID-19 is the last pandemic.
好消息是，不再需要说服世界相信制止大流行是重要的。我希望我们将看到对大流行预防工作的广泛支持，我计划花费大量时间为这些工作进行宣传。这是我在2022年要做的最重要的事情。我现在正在写一本书，明年某个时候就会出版，书中列出了我的计划，以确保2019冠状病毒疾病是最后一次流行病。
I think we’ll see plenty of other reasons for optimism in 2022 as well, especially on the innovation front. I expect lots of progress as R&D that was put on hold by the pandemic picks up steam.
我认为，在2022年，我们还会看到很多其他值得乐观的理由，特别是在创新方面。我希望随着研发工作取得很大进展，这项工作因大流行病而被搁置。
One of the things I’m most excited to track is the clinical trials for a promising new HIV preventative called islatravir. Today, you can reduce your risk of getting infected by either taking a pill every day or what’s called “on-demand prophylaxis.” Although both current options provide terrific protection, the former relies on the ability to take it regularly, and the latter requires planning ahead.
最令我兴奋的事情之一就是一种很有前途的艾滋病预防新药---- islatravir 的临床试验。今天，你可以通过每天服药或者所谓的“按需预防”来降低感染的风险虽然目前的两种选择都提供了极好的保护，但前者依赖于定期服用的能力，而后者则需要提前计划。
Islatravir is a pill that you take just once a month. The first results from the Phase II trials were released this summer, and they’re terrific so far. I look forward to seeing more next year, as well as following progress on Phase III trials. Our foundation helped fund a Phase III trial of the drug in Africa, which started in early 2021 and will study how effective the drug is for young women for the next several years.
Islatravir 是一种药丸，你只需要每月服用一次。第二阶段试验的第一个结果已经在今年夏天公布，到目前为止他们都很棒。我期待着明年看到更多的试验，并关注第三阶段试验的进展情况。我们的基金会帮助资助了这种药物在非洲的第三阶段试验，该试验始于2021年初，将研究这种药物在未来几年对年轻女性的有效性。
Another area to watch for in 2022 is Alzheimer’s diagnostics. Huge progress has been made on this front recently, and there’s a decent chance that the first affordable, accessible blood test for Alzheimer’s will get approved next year. Although this won’t be a gamechanger yet for people who have the disease—which currently has no cure or even a way to slow it down—this test will accelerate progress in the quest for a treatment breakthrough.
2022年另一个需要关注的领域是阿尔茨海默氏症的诊断。最近在这方面已经取得了巨大的进展，第一个负担得起的、可以获得的阿尔茨海默氏症血液检测将在明年获得批准的机会很大。虽然对于目前还没有治愈方法甚至无法延缓这种疾病的患者来说，这还不是一个颠覆性的测试，但这项测试将加速寻求治疗突破的进程。
I’m also looking forward to continuing the work of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Catalyst, and Fellows to make clean-energy innovations more available and affordable for everyone. They’re enabling breakthroughs across a broad range of areas, many of which are still years away. One area where we might see some real progress soon is in making green hydrogen fuels more affordable. This would be a huge step forward, because hydrogen fuels would enable long-duration energy storage and could be used to run things like large planes and industrial processes.
我也期待着继续突破能源风险投资、催化剂和研究员的工作，使清洁能源创新更容易为每个人所利用和负担得起。他们正在促成一系列广泛领域的突破，其中许多还需要数年的时间。我们可能很快看到一些真正的进展的一个领域是使绿色氢燃料更便宜。这将是一个巨大的进步，因为氢燃料可以长期储存能量，并且可以用于大型飞机和工业生产。
Settling into a new normal 进入一个新的常态
(Above) Kindergarteners wear masks in Bangkok, Thailand. (Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images) (Below) Another day, another virtual meeting.
(上图)泰国曼谷，幼儿园小朋友戴着口罩。(下图)又一天，又一次虚拟会议。
(Above) A woman shows her proof of vaccination document in Mexico. (Paul Ratje/Getty Images) (Below) A teacher in Nairobi, Kenya, checks her students’ temperatures before class starts. (SOPA Images/Getty Images)
(上图)在墨西哥，一名妇女出示了她的疫苗接种证明文件。(Paul Ratje/盖蒂图片社)(下图)肯尼亚内罗毕的一位老师在上课前检查学生的体温。(SOPA Images/Getty Images)
(Above) Kindergarteners wear masks in Bangkok, Thailand. (Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images) (Below) Another day, another virtual meeting.
(上图)泰国曼谷，幼儿园小朋友戴着口罩。(下图)又一天，又一次虚拟会议。
(Above) A woman shows her proof of vaccination document in Mexico. (Paul Ratje/Getty Images) (Below) A teacher in Nairobi, Kenya, checks her students’ temperatures before class starts. (SOPA Images/Getty Images)
(上图)在墨西哥，一名妇女出示了她的疫苗接种证明文件。(Paul Ratje/盖蒂图片社)(下图)肯尼亚内罗毕的一位老师在上课前检查学生的体温。(SOPA Images/Getty Images)
I’ve never been a big New Year’s resolution person. I don’t have any specific goal in mind for 2022 (although I guess I still have a couple more weeks to think of one). But what I do hope is that next year is a lot more settled than this one.
我从来都不是一个新年决心的人。我对2022年没有任何具体的目标(尽管我想我还有几个星期的时间去想)。但我真正希望的是，明年会比今年稳定得多。
Human beings are naturally resistant to change. Whether it’s the massive global upheaval of the last two years or transitions closer to home, it’s never easy to adjust to new ways of living.
人类天生就抗拒改变。无论是过去两年全球发生的巨大变化，还是离家更近的转变，都不容易适应新的生活方式。
I think 2022 will be a year when many of us finally settle into a post-pandemic new normal. For me, that will mean going into the office a bit more as COVID cases hopefully go down. I want to find a new rhythm at home now that all three of my kids have moved away and my day isn’t as structured around finding time to spend with them. I’m looking forward to spending more time engaging with people through my blog and other channels. I’d like to keep up my COVID-era habit of watching lots of educational videos on YouTube and subscription services like Wondrium, because they’re a really great way to learn about obscure topics. (I now know more about glassmaking, birdwatching, and the history of American Samoa than I ever expected.)
我认为2022年将是我们中的许多人最终适应后大流行新常态的一年。对我来说，这将意味着进入办公室更多一点的 COVID 病例希望下降。我想在家里找到一个新的节奏，现在我的三个孩子都搬走了，我的一天不是围绕着找时间和他们一起度过。我期待着通过我的博客和其他渠道花更多的时间与人们交流。我想继续保持我在 covida 时代的习惯，在 YouTube 和 Wondrium 这样的订阅服务上观看大量的教育视频，因为这是了解晦涩话题的一个非常好的方式。(现在我对玻璃制作、观鸟和美属萨摩亚历史的了解比我想象的要多。)
I hope you and your loved ones also find a way to create new routines. There’s no question that the pandemic will create huge, lasting changes that will take years to fully understand, which can feel scary. One of my favorite authors, Yuval Noah Harari, once wrote that, “people are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.”
我希望你和你所爱的人也能找到一种创造新生活的方法。毫无疑问，这场流行病将带来巨大而持久的变化，这些变化需要多年时间才能完全理解，这让人感到恐惧。我最喜欢的作家之一，哈拉瑞 · 马丁曾经写道: “人们通常害怕改变，因为他们害怕未知。但历史上唯一最伟大的恒定就是一切都在变化。”
The world has adapted to big disruptions before, and we’ll do it again. In the meantime, I wish you a very happy holiday season.
这个世界以前已经适应了大的分裂，我们将再次这样做。与此同时，我祝你节日快乐。
