Editor’s note for Wednesday, January 13, 2021

My thoughts today: 

Chinese travel season is upon us — the first day of the Chinese New Year is February 12 and today the country reported “a total of 115 new confirmed cases compared with 55 a day earlier, the highest daily increase since July 30.” So the Year of the Ox looks set to begin like the Year of the Rat did a year ago: The government is “imposing lockdowns on hard-hit areas, quarantining more than 20 million people, and urging citizens to forgo unnecessary travel.” 

Our word of the day is vaccine effectiveness (疫苗的有效性 yìmiáo de yǒuxiàoxìng) or what some state media articles in China are calling, perhaps to indicate confidence, 保护力 bǎohù lì, literally “protection strength.” 

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief