【C】How can we summarize the Covid year from a broad historical perspective? Many people believethat the terrible toll coronavirus has taken demonstrates humanity’s helplessness in the face of nature’smight. In fact, 2020 has shown that humanity is far from helpless. Epidemics are no longeruncontrollable forces of nature. Science has turned them into a manageable challenge.
        Why, then, has there been so much death and suffering? Because of bad political decisions. Inprevious eras, when humans faced a plague such as the Black Death, they had no idea what caused itor how it could be stopped. When the 1918 influenza struck, the best scientists in the world couldn’tidentify the deadly virus, many of the countermeasures adopted were useless, and attempts to developan effective vaccine proved futile.
        It was very different with Covid-19. The first alarm bells about a potential new epidemic begansounding at the end of December 2019. By January 10, 2020, scientists had not only isolated theresponsible virus, but also sequenced its genome and published the information online. Within a fewmore months it became clear which measures could slow and stop the chains of infection. Within lessthan a year several effective vaccines were in mass production. In the war between humans andpathogens, never have humans been so powerful.
        Alongside the unprecedented achievements of biotechnology, the Covid year has also underlinedthe power of information technology. In previous eras humanity could seldom stop epidemics becausehumans couldn’t monitor the chains of infection in real time, and because the economic cost ofextended lockdowns was prohibitive. In 1918 you could quarantine people who came down with thedreaded flu, but you couldn’t trace the movements of pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers. Andif you ordered the entire population of a country to stay at home for several weeks, it would haveresulted in economic ruin, social breakdown and mass starvation.
        In contrast, in 2020 digital surveillance made it far easier to monitor and pinpoint the diseasevectors, meaning that quarantine could be both more selective and more effective. Even moreimportantly, automation and the Internet made extended lockdowns viable, at least in developedcountries. While in some parts of the developing world the human experience was still reminiscent ofpast plagues, in much of the developed world the digital revolution changed everything. 
【題組】41.According to the author, in the face of nature’s power such as Covid-19, human beings _____.
(A) are simply hopeless
(B) know how to use science to control it
(C) need to resort to the almighty for help
(D) learn how to emigrate to avoid it