Editor’s note for Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Dear Access member,

First, let’s debunk some recent sensationalist headlines:

Wuhan is not going to test 11 million residents in 10 days. The actual plans of the city, as reported by Reuters or The Paper (in Chinese), are a bit unclear, but they are probably not as ambitious as headlines in outlets like BBC and the Washington Post made them seem.

Wuhan probably has an in-city capacity to do around 46,000 tests per day, according to a report in Caixin (in Chinese), and third-party testing centers could provide capacity for an additional 100,000 daily tests. Caixin points out that this is far short of the million per day required to screen all residents of the city in just 10 days.

Two other things you need to know today:

China is rejecting Australian beef as the relationship between the two Pacific countries hits new lows (see story #1 below).

Elon Musk is ranting about “fascism” and government overreach in America, but he has just taken a half billion dollar loan from a state-owned Chinese bank. See story #2 below.

Our word of the day is erroneous words and deeds 错误言行 cuò wù yán xíng — see story #1.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief