Novel coronavirus mass screening test

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There is a heated debate recently in this little island and it even has the HKSAR chief executive, Carrie Lam, involved into it. She accused the ones whom object the mass screening test on the novel coronavirus have hidden agenda and trying to damage the relationship between the China central government and Hong Kong. Naturally only the persons who do that know whether the accusation is valid but it is not of my concern about it. What I care is whether such mass screening test can do its intended job thus whether the Hong Kong citizens should take part into it and bear the risks associated. A typical benefit vs cost analysis apart from political consideration.

The details of the screening test exercise is yet released by the government but according to the heads up, about 100 sampling spots will be set up in all 18 districts throughout Hong Kong. These sampling spots are mostly community facilities and manned with 3000+ personnel for the samples taking. The participation on the test is voluntary based with online booking for testing. Sampling is swabbing both in nose and at throat.

The controversy lies mostly this is a voluntary exercise meaning it is just all up to each citizen's decision whether to be tested or not. This is just contrary to the intended purpose of the exercise which is expected to break the community infection by detecting and screening out those asymptomatic carriers whom spread the virus unknowingly putting the infection never ends.

First of all, when this is not a compulsory testing then it literally fails to achieve its goal especially when the participation is low. Medical experts said it must has at least 5 millions people take part the exercise then it is meaningful. I am not sure how this figure is arrived at but personally I think when the purpose is to find out those asymptomatic carriers to stop their spreading to the community then even if a handful of them are missed out if they are not tested then the whole exercise just goes in vain.

Secondly when the exercise is voluntary then people can roughly estimate how likely of  those asymptomatic carriers are motivated to be tested when most of them think they are in good condition. Common sense tells us that the most motivated participants are those work or live in high risk premises or those whom already have mild symptoms yet not verified. Naturally it is good to screen this segment of people but this is just not enough especially it is those asymptomatic carriers whom pose the major threat of the unidentified source of infection. In reality even if there is only one such carrier living in the community then the infection will just never end and most of all, most likely it will be untraceable due to unidentified source.

Furthermore the exercise can at large be seen as a snapshot of the status when the individual is being tested when people remains mobile after the testing. They could be healthy at the moment of testing but be infected in the following day. As long as people can move around after the testing then they are under the risk of being infected at any time. That renders the exercise can act only as a snapshot rather than an effective screening.


A meaningful screening works only when it is 100% compulsory and combined with strict stay home order during the entire period of testing campaign. Apparently this exercise will only become a PR show that promotes how the China central government cares Hong Kong people and how generous it is to financially sponsor the campaign.

While as a whole the exercise is bound to be a failure to its intended purpose yet it is not totally useless for individuals at least a snapshot at the moment of testing is achievable. Having said, it does not come without drawbacks. Naturally the biggest concern is the gathering at the sampling venue where risk is quite high because as explained previously that those show up at the venue are most likely whom having high risk. In fact ironically the more successful of the campaign is then high numbers of more high risk participants will be drawn to the sampling venues. This is also in contrary to the government's appeal on the social distancing. The exercise could do more bad than good indeed.

On the other hand, the qualification and experience of these 3000 personnel are at question. The government once said even the medical students will also be recruited. The process of the sampling in the nose poses certain risk which can bring injury if conducted by inexperienced personnel. The exercise will be rolled out starting from September 1 when is a few days later. It is a reasonable worry that whether those medical students are adequately trained by then.

Anyway without the prejudice on political stance, it is all up to each individual's evaluation on their own benefit and risk on the decision. Good luck!

Wild thoughts amid the novel coronavirus pandemic (2)

While the novel coronavirus situation seems to be leveling off in the western world like Europe and mixed in the U.S., in fact, from the global perspective it is still far from satisfactory because there are still a daily close to thousand new cases in Singapore throughout the past week while things in Russia is getting worse now. Coincidentally these two places are in two extremes in the climate that one is hot all year round and the other one is still cold at night now so it tells us that this virus can spread disregard of the weather. Unfortunately this phenomenon suggests that the earlier forecast made by the medical experts that this virus is going to be with us for good perhaps bingo. On the other hand, not only there were already protests in some of the states in the U.S. that people requested lifting on the ban a couple of weeks ago but there are also voices in the Europe that people urging for reopening. Ironically the U.K. prime minister Johnson has just made his speech about his experience on the fighting with the disease saying that he was indeed at the brink of death yet people just seems too brave to ignore the consequence of contracting this virus. Apparently just as what I said in my earlier post that if this outbreak as well as lockdown persist then the fear of more people will die from financial unwell than that from disease overrides mind. This is sad but true and this is the reality or dilemma the world is facing now.

While it is still controversial on the cause and origin of this virus but no matter what this is a setback of the arrogance of human being which is totally defeated by a much much smaller tiny creature at least up to this moment. Not only that an effective vaccine is still far from availability but even if when it exists, how much time will it take to produce enough dosages for the world's 7.8 billion population? Let alone some countries just even cannot afford to buy enough vaccine for their citizen. Willingly or not, herd immunity seems to be the ultimate resort for some poor countries despite at a high cost that many infected will not make it given the poor condition of the healthcare system in these countries.

Despite it is called novel coronavirus but in fact people should not be surprised on its attack. Medical experts have been waving red flag on the onset of the superbugs which is as the result of the abuse on the usage of antibiotics. In fact there are already a few antibiotic-resistant bacteria exist, namely MRSA, CRE, VRE...etc, that these bacteria cannot be treated by the usage of existing antibiotics. These superbugs can cause diseases in various severity from skin infection to death. Luck seemed to be on human's side so far that there was no outbreak of fatal disease caused by these superbugs. Is this Coronvirus just another red flag or will it end up to be the terminator? Time will tell. People should not forget that 90% of the population of the indigenous Indian in the America was wiped out by the virus brought to this new land by the European settlers centuries ago. Viruses are tiny but could be lethal.

Prior to this virus outbreak, human is so contented on their level of scientific knowledge and technologies. Some even think they are almost playing God's duties. People believe that there is a will, there must be way to defy the laws in the mother nature. The world, oh no, should be the universe is all up to human's exploitation. But is it?

No doubt that human's intelligence is above all creatures in the world so this single species excels in this planet. Human being not only dominates the earth but squeezes the room of existence of other species. With their superior intelligence human created a host of tools that other creatures are no match with in the competition on resources. Mankind seems to be almighty with the equipment built under their technologies. However, while people is contented with the progress made along with their intelligence, it seems they have overlooked that other species are also evolving along their own path. Different animals have developed different abilities which mankind is no match with at all not only to survive but also to race against their preys and predators in order to flourish. Unlike the external equipment to human being, these animals own these innate abilities built in their own bodies like bats can locate with supersonic, eagles see with super vision, electric eels shock their prey with high voltage electricity, sharks can detect the tiny electric wave emitted by the prey...etc.

When people is so proud with their equipment and the abilities brought by these tools, it seems they have never thought how vulnerable human is when they are deprived from these equipment which they take it as granted. No need to go too extreme to imagine when there is no electricity in the world but just imagine the Internet is, for some reason, no longer working then can someone think about what a world will we be living in? On the contrary our animals counterpart is not upset at all if one day no matter due to whatever reason human's technologies do not work anymore. There is a saying that if one day the world is destroyed by our own invention of nuclear bomb but cockroach will still be living.

Human appears strong and in fact we are strong when we are in command on our equipment. In other words, we are strong just because we have these equipment and we are nothing when we do not have them. The reality is that most of the people do not survive without the civilization we created.

I recall one of the lyric of the song Hotel California.

"We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"

Globalization rethink

The novel coronavirus global pandemic not only hits the world on the health aspect but also imposed a profound impact on the world economy as well. As and when the virus situation subsides (hopefully it will) there will be a host of topics that the world must look into it so many people said our world is going to be a different one after the pandemic. Among the list of topics, one most talked about is the future development of the existing globalization setting.

Some people said the once flourish globalization is nearly destroyed overnight along with the onset of the outbreak. Alongside the lockdowns and shutdown on the national borders on many nations across the major continents human traffic, especially cross-border, literally came to a complete halt. Cargo traffic is equally hit as well because when lockdowns on cities as well as on some nations kicked in the production is unavoidably severely impacted. Globalization means production of all the parts within a product scattered throughout different countries, if not continents. The Domino effect further hammers the normal operation in production when one or some imported parts is out of stock due to the lockdowns. This is particularly true for those enterprises who practice JIT (Just in Time) inventory system. The world suddenly realizes that how fragile the existing system is so people can't help but just question whether we should keep the existing system running.

Naturally the concern on the stability issue arising from the logistic problem is quite valid. The view is rather monotone though. The argument rests mainly on economic which focuses on the disruption on production and the economic losses arising from it. Despite there are also some western countries have political concern that some strategic essentials which are now produced overseas. This raises the concern up to the national security level when supplies are interrupted just like what has happened on the face masks. Naturally it is almost for sure that governments around the world will raise an agenda for the procurement on such strategic essentials but after all, these items are just a very small fraction of the total world trade volume so the retreat of these items from the world trade will not pose a significant impact on the globalization status.

Perhaps before we go further on the assessment on the survival of globalization, a look back on how the globalization is born can help. Most people see globalization a rather modern thing meaning it happened quite lately. Many people relate it to the industrialization and the modern management theory of labour division. It is true that only after the industrial revolution that production mode changed from manually to inception of machinery so efficiency was gradually increased and so was the output. As the technologies advanced over time but not all countries progressed in the same pace and the same direction, some countries outperformed others in the production of some particular products so labour division emerged among nations and that was the background of the birth of globalization.

Nevertheless, industrialization and labour division just provided a breeding ground of globalization but they do not necessarily cultivate it without a key drive. There must be someone giving them a big push to facilitate the onset of globalization. In fact industrialization and labour division were something very revolutionary by themselves at their birth but they were just the means of the underlying end, ie., profit maximization. By the employment of sophisticated production technologies and having the products made in a low costs country yields the highest profit. Profit maximization is the ultimate goal, or the single goal, if a business must choose from. Yet this is the economic drive only.

In the earlier paragraph I mentioned that most people think that globalization is a rather contemporary concept but in fact perhaps it happened as earlier as in the heyday of the British Empire who was once described as the empire on which sun never sets. The Empire earned this title because she once had colonies where the sun would always shine on one of her colonies. She owned so many colonies not for fun but for profit maximization. People should remember that the Empire was the birthplace of the industrial revolution so she had the most state of the art machinery at that time. The Empire needed a great deal of raw materials for her production as well as a big market to dump her products made by the machinery. Naturally she did not have enough natural resources from her own soil of three islands only so the Royal Navy conquered those colonies which fed the Empire's appetite. On the other hand, the warships also opened up the market for her products in different continents. This is the globalization in true sense.

After the WII, the U.S. succeeded in replacing her mother to be an empire. "American Empire" exists in another form that it basically does not own colony but through its strong military muscle and the U.S. Dollar landscape the "Empire" has been ruling the world with even more (economic) colonies than her mother. Therefore the U.S. was, till this late decade, an hard core fan of globalization. People have heard her solid support on the globalization as well as free world trade over the past decades because these two advocates are the nutcracker on opening up the world market on the natural resources supplies as well as product export. Things started to change only when Trump became the president of the U.S. because he holds different view from the multiple super super wealthy families whom are the beneficiaries of the U.S.'s globalization policy. Therefore Trump does not earn their support and people see Trump has his leg being pulled more than any of his predecessors.

Just like any of the empires in the history, the British Empire fell so will the "American Empire" eventually but people is seeing a young challenger on the rise. China is eagerly trying to mimic what the Uncle Sam's defeat over his mother to replace this ageing giant. People see that China is pathing her way towards an empire by advocating the Rise of a Big Nation followed by the initiative of Belt and Road. She is actively stretching her legs and arms over the world. Therefore people is not surprised to see China became the most solid supporter of the free world trade and globalization than is the U.S. now.

Globalization is the way empires pillage the world so as long as there is empire in the world, there will always be globalization out of question.

Wild thoughts amid the novel coronavirus pandemic

A tiny creature turned the human being's world upside down. Despite the recent news shows that it seems the death tolls due to the novel coronavirus became a little bit leveling off in these few days but the worldwide infection, except that in the origin of this pandemic China, still remains at a high level. Some optimistic people think the infection rate will drop when summer draws near. However, these people are just far too optimistic or just with too much wishful thinking. They simply forget that this is a global pandemic meaning that there are infection even in the African countries and tropical countries like Singapore and Thailand where summer is all year around. This coronavirus is just not another SARS which subsided along with the warm weather. Unfortunately the forecast made by medical experts as I mentioned in my post Did we go too far? a month ago seems becoming more and more evidenced.

In the same post I also had query that the lockdown, especially nationwide, is an appropriate measure in dealing with the outbreak because such handling is devastating in economy for those countries which practice it. Apparently as what I put it a herd behaviour is proven to be a brainless mimicking now. Despite the U.S. has the highest death tolls and infections so it became the worst hit country yet it only implements patchwork lockdown and people should note that the U.S. is also a vast country and with strong economy like China who can withstand the harsh economic consequences of the lockdown. Smaller nations are just committing economic suicide when they blindly mimic such controversial measure.

In fact as strong as they are yet China has withdrawn the lockdown on her Hubei province already and Trump is looking forward eagerly to resuming the nation in normal in order to keep their economy engine running. When we consider seriously the forecast that made by the medical experts that this coronavirus will most likely with us for good and in the meantime vaccine is not going to be available in this 1-2 years time that we know that locking down in the hope to buy time to stop the spreading is virtually impractical.

Locking down in the short run can really stop the spreading within the locked area because social contact is cut completely but at one hand lockdown is just impossible to be permanent so spreading will just resume as soon as lockdown is lifted as long as the virus still exists in that area. On the other hand, the whole world now is living in a global village so as long as this virus exists in one corner of the world then it will just spread to the other parts of the world even if a specific nation has successfully eliminated this virus in its soil. The effort and economic loss for the lockdown just went in vain.

The U.K. once considered tackling measure, herd immunity, was under big attack and Boris Johnson also became a laughing stock when he himself contracted the disease as well. This idea looks outrageous in the first glance because it puts the lives of the whole nation under serious test. Many weak and vulnerable people could die if not treated properly and timely. So the point is not the idea of herd immunity but the execution of this idea. The key point is an organized fashion of herd infection that will not flood the public health system to crash. Man-made vaccine takes at least 4-5 years to be developed but the antibody can be generated one week after the infection. An organized fashion of herd infection within the capacity of the public health system not only let the community generate antibody in the quickest time but also keep the patients in good looking-after condition to minimize the death toll due to complication. Let alone the salvation on the economic impasse arising from the lockdown.

Whether lockdown is effective in combating the spreading is still controversial and only time can tell. One thing for sure is that many people around the world have already lost their jobs or at least some of their income. When the outbreak persists as well as the lockdown then there will be even more people than is now in serious financial hit. They do not die from the disease but just from financial unwell.

Herd immunity is outrageous? In extraordinary time people need thinking out-of-the-box.

Did we go too far?

As many other countries, apart from the epicenter China, were infected with the novel coronavirus, the WHO finally admitted that it is a global pandemic and truly it is that despite not every nation in the world but all continents with human habitat have become infected areas now. Interestingly it seems China not only "exported" the disease but also the way of the public health handling. Many countries now mimic the sealing up of districts or even cities with outbreak. Some like Italy and Spain even went to next level to seal up the whole country and imposed residential quarantine in the whole nation. It seems Herd Behaviour is in play again now, and as usual.

There is a word of wisdom saying that one's tonic could be the poison of other. Sealing up the entire city or even a nation could do more harm than good when without a thorough examination on the long term effect but just brainlessly and blindly follow what China did on the blockage in the Hubei province where the Wuhan City is as well as the outcome. So far it seems China has contained the outbreak within the Hubei province by sealing up and imposing residential quarantine over the 59.2 millions of population. The success is indeed a Pyrrhic victory and it was the last resort of the lesser evil option when the patients are way much more than the capacity of the local medical system. Most of all, this measure would not has become effective without a powerful central government, or in other name, a totalitarian administration. This is exactly what the democratic nations are lack of.

The effectiveness of the Hubei blockage also lies on the China context that she is a vast country with 13+ billions of population. The powerful central government can coordinate its resources other than the Hubei province effectively and efficiently to implement whatever measure deemed to be necessary to deal with the outbreak in a relatively small fraction of the whole nation. Sealing up an entire province with 59.2 millions of population could be a detrimental hit on its economy but it is still not up to an arm or leg to the whole nation. Without such background the sheep nations who brainlessly follow what China did could just put themselves into an economical impasse. Residential quarantine means no productivity at all for the entire nation or the related district, without the effective and efficient support from an outside source, their economy could quickly be suffocated. Revenue lost during the sealing up is gone forever like barber shops, cinemas, restaurants, gyms, amusement parks and transportation of all sorts...etc and even after the outbreak the future consumption just cannot compensate the already lost revenue so recession in those countries or districts is literally something for sure.

As what I put in my post Is A Trade Worthwhile that we should examine the probability as well as the payout whenever we decide to bet or invest. The same theory holds true when facing a risk that consideration should be put on how likely and what the damage will be. This novel coronavirus is said to be highly infectious so if there is no enough protective gears for everybody then the probability of contracting the disease is very high. This is exactly the case allover the world but the key point lies on the extent of the damage even if infected. The mortality rate, according to the WHO and the factual statistic from most of the infected countries also show that it is around 3-4% as a whole. This mortality rate is based on death toll against the confirmed infection but it is quite sure that the actual infection rate must be much higher than what it is known because many countries are just in shortage of the testing capability to verify all the vectors, especially for those asymptomatic. The disease could be less fatal than it appears to be, definitely far less than a common flu.

We must admit that we are living in an imperfect world that we cannot have the cake and eat it too. The experience for those areas with earlier outbreak could be a good reference to the late comers.  China is the epicentre and Hong Kong is indeed very much synchronized on the infection. Despite there is no statutory citywide residential quarantine here in Hong Kong yet some businesses have  virtually nearly come to a halt like the tourism, hospitality, dining and most retailing except grocery. So the impact on those nationwide and citywide sealed up is unavoidably comprehensive and even bigger than that on Hong Kong. Some medical experts already hinted that this virus is not going to subside soon or even probably to be with us for good. In that case, is the world really sustainable with the current mode of counter measures?

Did we go too far in light of the economic damage vs the public health crisis?

A sad sad story

There is a saying here in Hong Kong that life is in analogy of movie and the other way round as well meaning sometimes what happen to us is really as dramatic as the episodes in a movie and sometimes the episodes do reflect what happen on us. There are nothing more sought after than face masks in this moment in this island. There is nothing more than it which is able to catch everyone's attention here in Hong Kong. The humble face masks are even more valuable than money to people in need. People even stayed overnight in the street queuing for it. There is nothing more ridiculous than these scenarios of queuing whenever there is news about sales of face mask in a shop. Sadly this is not the episode in Steven Chow's comedy movies but is what really happening everyday on the common folk here in Hong Kong.

With inventory of face masks running out in most households so undoubtedly many people's life in this island is heavily disrupted. Classes are suspended, many social activities are cancelled, some bank branches are closed and even some government services are stopped. All but just for the sake of minimizing virus transmission due to the lack of face masks. Naturally people complain on all these inconveniences. Luckily the mortality rate remains as a single case only so the public's panic is somehow in check.

However, what is happening in Hubei province and its capital, Wuhan City, the origin of this pandemic, is far more desperate. The whole province is sealed and outbound traffic is blocked at all for more than two weeks now. Intra-cities traffic within Hubei as well as that inside each major cities are also restricted. Residents are demanded to stay at homes to avoid community spreading. Pedestrian is rarely seen on the streets so these cities are just like a ghost town as seen in the episode of Hollywood horror movies.

What even more horrible is that despite of the strict control of human traffic but in fact new infection cases as well as death toll are still coming up everyday in these cities. Along with the restriction on human traffic within the cities, all public services are literally suspended. The RTHK TV's documentary production, Hong Kong Connection, managed to interviewed two Hong Kong families got stuck in Wuhan City and in a smaller city near the provincial border, Zaoyang, respectively both said medical services are suspended due to the human traffic restriction amid the Coronavirius outbreak in the community within their cities. Hospitals denied admission for consultation disregard the patient's symptoms but just sent them back home for residential quarantine only. Their real life experience suggest that the scale of the infection in the Hebei province is so large that it goes beyond the government's capability and literally the local medical facilities just fail to cope with. The government cannot do nothing but just compulsorily quarantine all residents at home.

Quarantine perhaps is effective in preventing social contacts among households but the key point is that they do not just quarantine healthy households but those infected ones as well. Most of all, these families with infected patients are quarantined without any medical treatment or medicines. They are basically rest their lives on luck with fingers crossed that they can get well on their own, or in the worst case to die in isolation. Strictly speaking apart from the Wuhan City where the central government has dispatched a task force team to help, the patients in the other cities in Hubei province is just abandoned. Wuhan City gets the salvation due to its economic importance but less fortunate for the rest. The central government's tactic seems to be natural selection, ie, when all the sicked died then the survivors are proven to be healthy.

Apparently the strike of this virus outbreak is a setback in China's advocate of the rise of a big nation. The myth of an almighty country is broken with its vulnerability against the attack of a tiny creature. By pulling all effort from the whole nation it can save one city only but at the expenses of all the life in other cities in Hubei province.

The outbreak of this virus also revealed one of the institutional flaw in China that the whistle blower, a doctor in Wuhan City, at the preliminary stage of the outbreak was even suppressed and criticized by the local police bureau as a trouble maker and rumormonger when he alerted his acquaintance over the social media. In fact this is a typical and common reaction of the local authorities all over China that they all tend to suppress everything that might invoke vast social concern which could reveal their deficiency in public governance thus undermining their chances of career promotion. It could be a much different scenario had timely precaution and necessary preparation been in place. Unfortunately in China very often it is the common folks whom are suffered from the misbehaviour of the officials.

The underlying cause of this phenomenon revealed an even greater flaw in China's institutional structure. The bottom line is that the government as well as the ruling party is lack of people's recognition and delegation through a proper mechanism. The CCP got into power by expelling GMT regime to Taiwan through civil war but since then it runs the country with totalitarianism. Therefore the CCP regime is in dire need of social stability to avoid any social event that might rock its ruling. Their instinct is to suppress them at infancy or to cover up at the preliminary stage in the hope to avoid the public's awareness. This is exactly why the Wuhan police bureau suppressed the whistle blower whom just wanted to alert his own acquaintance only.

Unfortunately they unknowingly seeded a nightmare which they cannot contain this time out of their expectation.