This Post is Disinfected Every Four Hours

It's easy to see why this city is so obsessed with preventing the spread of swine flu. The SARS epidemic in the early part of the decade hit the city hard, and resulted in the deaths of nearly 300 Hong Kong residents, so it's natural that the residents of this city tend to be a little bit paranoid about airborne diseases. But it's also easy to see that many of the measures that both the residents, and the government, of Hong Kong are taking are completely useless in preventing the spread of this virus.

For one, wearing a face mask has been proven to be virtually useless in preventing one from catching the disease. The swine flu virus is tiny – just 80 to 120 nanometers in size – so wearing a typically ill-fitting surgical mask is hardly effective in preventing disease. Unless one already has the disease – in which case the mask would serve a useful purpose in preventing the wearer from sneezing or coughing on other people – wearing the mask is almost entirely useless.

Secondly, the city's policy of shutting down schools as soon as a single student is diagnosed with the disease seems rather counterproductive. Where do all of those remaining students go during the day, when they aren't in school? They go to the malls, to amusement parks, or to their friends' houses. The policy of shutting down schools seems to be based on the erroneous premise that students will stay in their own homes when schools are closed, thereby preventing the disease from spreading within the young, more vulnerable, population. But with students congregating in places outside of school, that premise is faulty, and the end result of such a policy is that students are missing out on their education. A better policy (which, in all fairness, is currently in the works) would be to send the infected students home and to carry on with the schooling unless a larger percentage of students gets infected. But with many schools set to reopen in less than a month anyway, the policy change is coming a bit late.

Lastly, the preventative sterilization of this city is reaching absurd levels. Stores are proud to proclaim that their door handles, escalator handrails, and elevator buttons are proudly disinfected “every four hours.” But does that really do anything? Assume that a door to a particular shopping mall is used by 1,000 people in an hour. Each person has billions of germs and bacteria on his hands, some of which will invariably be transferred to the door handle. Most of the more dangerous bacteria can be killed by a simple washing with soap and water. But by labeling all of these door handles, payphones, and bannisters as “disinfected,” people may mistakingly jump to the conclusion that they are disease-free. A person walking through a door three hours and 59 minutes since it was last disinfected will be touching the same handle as nearly 4,000 other people (to go along with the previous example), yet because it is sterilized several times throughout the day, he may think that he can afford to be less vigilant in washing his hands. Such thinking may be dangerous, especially when the stated purpose of such regular sterilization is to prevent the spread of a transmittable disease.

It is clear that measures are needed to prevent the spread of a disease that may well kill tens of thousands of people. But many of those measures, like washing one's hands regularly and taking care to cover a sneeze, are rather low-key and should be heeded even in times of relatively calm public health. The measures discussed above, however, simply serve to increase public paranoia about the disease, while doing nothing to actually prevent it.

Check this article out from the NY Times:

My response:

This is, hopefully, going to be the most important issue in the near future. But here is my primary objection: how and what right does a group of 8 countries have to decide the fate of the developing world? Everybody is calling for leveling the playing field but we seem to forget the Western Industrial Revolution- and its role in raising the standard of living for Europe and the US. We cant realistically expect developing countries to simply halt production 20% in the next 4 decades. It is absurd, its is not going to happen. Developing countries are going to scoff at this agreement and declare it unfair.

Essentially, how do you raise standard of living of the Third World to the levels of Europe or the US yet lower greenhouse emissions when either the technology to accomplish said task is either not available or too expensive to be implemented?

Ponder on this quote by James Shikwati, directer of Kenya’s Inter-Regional Economic Network: “After talking numerous risks to reach their current economic and technological status, why do they [the developed world] tell poor countries to use no energy, and no agricultural or pest-control technologies that might pose some conceivable risk of environmental harm.”

This is only food for thought- I think there is a general consensus that we ought to preserve our environment- but I think there needs to be more creative and constructive methods than simply saying (and this is only talk) that the developing world needs to make a %20 cut.

Eugenio Suarez

The Unhappy Index

This morning as I was scouring the South China Morning Post I came across an interesting and controversial article. The piece centered around a ‘happiness index’ published by the New Economic Foundation. Essentially, the index was created using methodology that could somehow objectively measure and compare happiness across nations. I won’t go into the specifics of the methodology but I would like to address some of the surprising results.

It came to much of my surprise that all but one of the top ten “happiest” countries were in Latin America. I understand that developed nations have their issues, however, I was absolutely shocked as I began to scrutinize the list more closely. After a reasonable analysis and applied common sense I now have no hesitation to maintain that this particular index is nothing short of ridiculous and these findings ought to be dismissed- if not discredited. Due to limited space I can only share with you a general idea of my thought process, but I think it should suffice.

I begin with the alleged 3^rd happiest country in the world: Jamaica. This small Caribbean nation has just around 2.6 million inhabitants but yet suffers from an average 5 murders a day. Or better put Jamaica has a murder rate of more than 30 out every 100,000 people. In other words, for every million people more than 300 people will be murdered! Furthermore, according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK there is a prevalence rate of HIV of around 1.6% of the population- and a monthly GDP per capita of less that US$420! But of course the ills of the developed world are much worse.

Maybe Jamaica was a fluke. Colombia is ranked as the 6^th happiest nation in the world. Keep in mind that Colombia has the highest murder rate in the world with over 60 for every 100,000 people. Violent drug cartels have riddled the nation for nearly 40 years resulting in tens of thousands of kidnappings, countless deaths, mine fields, etc. Should I even mention FARC? The leftist faction responsible for nearly a three decade civil war financed with drugs. Several sources have claimed that this South American nation is one of the most dangerous countries in the world- yet happy nonetheless.

I move on to Cuba- and as a Cuban-American living in the States I may be a bit biased. Biased- yet realistic. How is it that a nation that has suffered from a tyrannical dictatorship for 50 years has managed to creep into the top ten? Interesting. What was the logic? If I may quote the New Economic Foundation directly, “average life expectancy is only two months shorter than in the nearby USA, but with one seventh the level of GDP per capita.” Where do I begin? First, political prisoners are locked away for 20 years at a time for dissent. Second, there are summer long blackouts to conserve energy. Third, there are food rations in order to limit consumption. Fourth, there are inexplicable restrictions on internet and information from abroad. Cuba was recently ranked in the Index of Economic Freedom as the 3^nd to last freest economy in the world in front of Zimbabwe and North Korea. Nearly one million Cubans have emigrated from Cuba to the United States since Castro’s claim to power- yet Cuba is the 9^th happiest nation- far ahead of the US, Hong Kong and other developed nations.

I could go on and on. Like how in the Dominican Republic there are small mountainous regions where families live in shacks with no floors infested with rodents or how in Honduras there was a recent coup d’état. But that isn’t the point- I believe that happiness is ultimately subjective and is defined differently by every individual- devising an objective methodology to compare happiness seems to be futile right from the beginning, however, this for me is not the issue. In my humble opinion, in masking the real problems these impoverished nations face the New Economic Foundation is undermining human rights abuses, poverty, freedom and, to be honest, happiness itself.

Eugenio Suarez

See the full report: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/public-data/files/happy-planet-index-2-0.pdf

What's with the fear of credit cards, Hong Kong?

It's easy to see how in sync Hong Kong is with capitalism. Why, then, is it so difficult to pay for anything with a credit card in this city?

Run out of cash or of money on your Octopus card and it is downright impossible to get around Hong Kong. Try to pay with a credit card at any fast-food restaurant or 7-Eleven, and you will immediately be met with blank stares and a “Sorry! Cash or Octopus only” refrain. But why?

Common sense tells us that when a store makes buying things convenient, customers will come. The entire credit card business model is built on the idea of convenience: when customers can just flash a piece of plastic instead of having to dig through their wallets for dollar bills, they will find it easier to spend more money, and both the store and the consumer win.

Yet in Hong Kong, this logic seems to escape many store owners. Yes, the Octopus smart card system is widespread and, in many cases, even more convenient than credit cards. But the Octopus card itself cannot be refilled with a credit card – cash is a must, or you may apply for and set up one of the special, Octopus-affiliated debit cards. There simply aren't any other methods of refilling the card, yet the card is an undeniably integral part of every Hong Konger's life. Given that, would it really be that hard to install credit card machines in the customer service booths of each MTR station? And in response to the argument that banks have been slow to disburse credit card transactions to vendors over the last few months: wouldn't a corporation as big as Octopus, or 7-Eleven, be able to absorb the cost of waiting a few weeks for a credit card payment to come through? In the end, they benefit, so why are they so reluctant to take up this technology?

It just seems counterintuitive that one of the most business-friendly cities in the world is so averse to taking credit cards. This is Hong Kong – a city synonymous with capitalism and free trade – and yet, one of the most globally accepted forms of payment is oddly absent from many stores and service providers in this city, including 7-Eleven and the Octopus card system. What gives?