Editor’s note for Wednesday, March 31, 2021

My thoughts today:

Another day, another hostile press conference — see our story today on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s reactions to the WHO report on the origins of COVID-19, at the daily press briefing which today — like almost every day now — included denunciations of “vicious, waspish, and wanton accusations and insults that the U.S. flings at Xinjiang.”

The same press briefing also addresses, with accusations of “false reports,” the departure from China of two journalists: the BBC Beijing correspondent John Sudworth, who says threats and harassment by the state became too extreme to live with, and his wife Yvonne Murray, who reports on China for the Irish public broadcaster RTÉ.

Our word of the day is Fort Detrick 德特里克堡 dé tè lǐ kè bǎo.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief