Our shot in Havanna? ... or from Moscow with love?

In Germany, I fall through the grid again: 55 years old, no preconditions, not medical staff, not teacher nor police. My work is a lot about travelling to risk areas. Does that count? … No! … I can show contracts and invitation letters, and I have parents above 80 who I need to take care of. Counts? … No! ... How do you dare, trying to jump the cue? Have solidarity! Don't be antisocial! ... Me, antisocial? Why? When do you think I can get vaccinated? ... Okay, I was just asking. Sorry. German efficiency is a lot about criminalizing people who don't fall into the pattern. Even Germany is actually not efficient - but that's a different story.

So, let's do things the good old way and forget about Germany. I actually do have access to vaccinations. But stealing is unethical. And that would be really jumping the cue because these doses are scheduled for others. Some German local politicians did that - well, not stealing of course - but taking personal precautions so that they can better serve their constituency. Others were taking fees for facilitating deals for medical equipment, to better protect the public. I appreciate their efforts, but I am not a politician.

However, for me, vaccinations are available in Moscow, Tel Aviv, Havanna, Dubai or Hong Kong. In some of these places, you still have to quarantine, though. You can choose either two trips to a nice place or do a long one. Moscow is my favourite European city, anyways. And a vaccination centre is in the ГУМ Department Store, just opposite the Kremlin. It’s wonderful Russian architecture from the end of the 19th century, with a glass roof. And you still get a Sovjet style ice cream, wrapped in aluminium foil in the basement. That in itself would be worth going. It would also be interesting to see what changed in Havanna. In Hong Kong, when you choose Sinovac instead of BioNTech, it comes with a Visa to Mainland China. That’s great. Tel Aviv is just around the corner, and I am very interested in how the Israeli tech industry and research are doing. Dubai is a little too much shopping for my taste. And last but not least, there is Malta. When it counts, Malta often proofs to get the job done.

Talkshow resilience

With my headstart on the new Corona-Virus, back in Hong Kong in January 2020, it is now about my anniversary for Covid-19. A few friends got it and luckily recovered well - some more, some less easily. A few distant acquaintances sadly died of it, mostly aged above 70, but also others in their middle ages. I personally was lucky. But to put things in perspective: compared with military deployment, gunpoint mugging in Africa and South America, SARS in 2003, multiple car crashes, an emergency landing in an Antonov with a drunk Russian pilot, reanimation after drowning with cardiac arrest, MERS and Ebola, and Malaria Tropica I caught in Homabay … personally, Covid-19 was so far a walk in the park. I sometimes tell students, that if they did not survive an assassination attempt at the age of 30, it means they are either dead or dead boring. Or how come nobody wanted to kill them in their 20s? They regard this as an expression of “German humour”.

I understand the supply of classical radio stations on FM as an indicator for the culture of a society. Malta has non and it needs the short wave to access stations from Italy. But in Germany, there is a lot, and I usually enjoy listening when I am here. But these days I do get a little tired about all this current “resilience” talk, and the psychological effects of lockdowns. I am sorry for those suffering, but this is really too high level to me. Germany has one of the world’s best health care systems, massive government support for industries affected, their employees and also self-employed. Shops are well stocked, infrastructure is up and running, vaccinations are coming. Meanwhile, the public conversation is spiralling down into depression? Perhaps that’s why Germany produced so many philosophers: we just have so many sad people. My recommendation is to pull yourself together for a few more months. Or can cry about climate change for a difference. If already this virus challenges the mental resilience, better get used to it.

I turned 55 this month, and I heard on the radio that older people can cope better, especially when they have overcome some hardship. I don’t know. I have travelled to many countries in my life, including active warzones and somewhere war ended literally just yesterday, and shootings still flaring up without warning. It always impressed me, how fast people of all ages overcome adversity. Yes, there are sad cases of life long trauma. But, independent from age, my impression is that humans are built to survive, and also build to forget and forgive if necessary. I recall somebody who remembers living as a child in a Beijing earthquake shelter as a “happy childhood”. The shock only came when the Sichuan earthquake showed the same person as an adult what the scenario of her limited childhood experience actually looked like.

Do not get me wrong: I am not advocating forgetfulness. By the contrary, keeping memories of hardship, disaster and injustice are very important. It is not just in memory of victims, but also to hopefully learn from history. And we can use it to put the own perceived suffering into relation. A lockdown is not a prison experience. Children in homeschooling are not Anne Frank. It’s cynical that people even make these comparisons. In Germany, we have with Covid-19 the first real challenge since generations. And I think we are doing well, and are perhaps even a bit too loose and late with restrictions. The Federal Government bought today 200 000 doses of Regeneron, the antibody cocktail with which the former US president and his buddies were treated. And those who still feel scared, left behind, alone, bored and depressed: How about volunteering in a vaccination centre? They need people.

Billboard in Lebanon, photo taken 2019

Finally arrived Hong Kong - really

After two weeks of quarantine, Hong Kong greeted me with a marvellous sunny and mild day. I spent all of it walking, and had to learn that being looked up in a room for that time, makes me shaky on uneven ground. This was really a long journey to Hong Kong. I could have taken the train from Tilburg through Chengdu down here (in normal times).

Beyond midtime quarantine in Hong Kong

Another 6 days of 14 to stay in quarantine. It is not dull, but I do start missing to move around. Gymnastics is not the same as being outside or at least running up a staircase. But all this is not allowed. All I can do is open the window for a bit. Joints and muscles seem to ache more when you don’t use them. Nothing serious, just uncomfortable. Otherwise, I go with my days quite disciplined. I slept in the first day, as a result of jetlag and the hilarious journey. But the rest of the time, I am preparing material in the morning and then read in the afternoon. In the evenings, I listen to audiobooks. Now, it is Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. Before it was Max Frisch’s Homo Faber and Montauk. Audiobooks I find a good way to recapture on the common literature body. But I would feel strange to listen to a book, I never read before. I also tried some American nonfiction. Even though the books may be good, narrators with American accents talk very straight into your face. Then I tried a female American narrator, and it was like listening to Amy Coney Barrett’s pressing voice.

I am now down to one meal a day and rarely get hungry. Even I exercise, I need no energy at all above the base metabolism. For that, I made a choice of restaurants registered on Foodpanda. It works great. The driver delivers to the reception and the concierge will make sure it arrives quickly. I don’t have a microwave to heat things up. So, speed is essential. Then the bell rings; I put on my mask and Lisa, a middle-aged lady from South East Asia, has put my package on a little chair outside my door. Sometimes, I chat a few sentences with Lisa, who is very friendly. She takes care of at least a whole floor of quarantines, like me. This is my only human-human interaction. Then I get a call once a day, where I report my body temperature. Even with my laptop, I am very “connected”, I avoid private “Zoom calls”. I had a few calls work related to Tilburg University. But that’s it. I am quite lucky in this situation, that I am more of an introverted character. I can imagine for somebody extroverted, it must be hell.

I have a huge can of Nestle instant coffee. That was not a good choice. A friend made me aware of Aeropress. That looks like a handy piece of equipment, and I will get one for sure once I am out.

Tomorrow morning, I have to submit another specimen and submit it to a lab in Wanchai. For that, I booked a delivery service online. Let’s see how it goes. Only after confirmation of my negative COVID-19 test will I be released on Sunday, October 18th. Even though this is not pleasant for me, SARs 2 - COVID-19 is even less pleasant for others. I heard from friends, what it means to get it. And, seems not everybody has the immune response of the current US president. Whatever that story was. So, I instead keep a low viral footprint.

I am running my computer models to understand the spread of the epidemic. Some decades ago, I had the idea to use these models in marketing and treat it like a “disease”. These were interesting consulting projects in the 1990s. But rather than showing you my raw Pascal code, I recommend looking at the models merged below by Grant Sanderson, who also has a website I follow regularly: https://www.3blue1brown.com/

A ray of sunshine in quarantine: German organic apple juice.

The new normal

Lecturing in the Master of International Management at Tilburg University was in "Hybrid mode". It went well, but the campus looked like Minsk in the days after Chernobyl - wiped out, barely any students, no faculty, no chatting and discussions off the plan. Some already call this the “new normal”. Education has become more efficient. It’s good when it comes to admin and collaboration, but bad when it cuts out the discourse. In the long run, efficiency makes stupid. That’s why I hope the real new makes this distinction and keeps a better balance.

We were still lucky that we had on-campus seminars. And even the logistic efforts weaved around the security measures were daunting, it was worth it. I think we made good progress and got to know each other quite well. The last sessions, though, I had to move online, as Nordholland and Südholland were declared Covid-19 risk zones by Germany. Tilburg is in Nord Brabant, so not in any of these provinces. But given that I am about to travel to Hong Kong, and the situation and rules can change quickly, I decided to retreat into Germany and minimize movement.

Even it was different this year, my Tilburg engagement was a pleasure, as always. Students were very co-operative, and I can see over time a constant improvement. Also, the Financial Times Ranking of the programme went up. With a global rank of 49th, the program is now 2nd in The Netherlands. It was ranked 89th in 2017 and 57th in 2019. That's all good news. But still, the learning experience for the students resembles more that of inmates that enrolled at an "Open University" to prepare for life after they served their sentence. One even had two Erasmus exchanges, only to be locked up in an apartment in two countries different from his home.

The rest of the time, besides some research and developing advisory work on the "One Belt, One Road Initiative", it has been quiet and sunny autumn. And there is a new Business Case in the pipeline on the bankruptcy of "Vapiano", a restaurant chain, which will be published by the Asian Case Research Centre (ACRC) soon.

Besides doing some new things, I also stopped doing some others. For example, I stopped following the news on the US. America is such a waste of time. So is the UK. I was just wondering recently, whether these American journalists, politicians and commentators, really have these voices, or this is just a technical distortion by the Internet. If not, perhaps a more potent nasal decongestion spray may help. Or how about reducing vocal air pressure? I always have the impression that they don't breathe naturally, but are ventilated from behind by a compressor through the anus. That would also explain why they talk quite some shit. Anyway, that's other people's problem.

Now I am heading for Hong Kong. All is packed, and formalities are done. I will start my time there with two weeks quarantine, locking myself in a hotel room, being supplied by food delivery services and books on my Kindle. Let's see how that will go. Of course, nobody who enjoys being outdoors likes being contained in such a way. But it will be also interesting, how the body and mind respond to solitary confinement.

Hard to believe it is already October, given this marvellous weather. But this hedgehog I found reminded me that winter is coming. It’s too small to survive a normal winter, so it is prepped up with a mix of butter, oats and minced meat.

Lessons learned from Covid 19

I have been dealing with this Covid-19 virus since I flew from London to Hong Kong on February 1st this year. From this moment onward all started falling apart to an extend I also did not anticipate. As I have six weeks headstart with this virus compared with the Western world, let me sum up what I learned so far. 

1. Science matters. Exponential growth is what it is. And Covid-19 is a virus, not a ghost. Especially in the early days of infections in Hong Kong, it was not clear what we were up against. This gave room to a lot of speculation, rumours, conspiracy theories and tales. I am not on social media, so most of it I have not even seen. But I heard some of the sprays. I was very impressed when a Finnish company at the end of February told me that they ran the numbers and decided not to have visitors on their production campus until the end of June. Actually, why can a telecom equipment manufacturer do that, while the WHO was meandering around confusing people? My first source of information was actually the WHO at the beginning. Next time, I know better. I will ask Nokia.

2. Study statistics and stop blaming. After the virus broke out in Wuhan, people mistrusted the reported numbers. Yes, you always have to distrust numbers. Especially when you can't test, have reporting inaccuracies, time lags, cross dependencies in underlying conditions etc. Measuring is hard. It's not that the Chinese can't count. Trust me, they can count far better than most others. You need assumptions and standards which have to be developed on the job. That includes errors and inconsistencies naturally. 

3. Stop using the terms "Human rights" and "Freedom" as a deterrent. And it's not "Chinese dictatorship" to confine people at home and limit travel when there is a disease outbreak. Quarantine is a proven method to stop a disease from spreading. Real "dictators" actually don't care about quarantine. They only care about themselves. Of course, we have to defend personal rights and freedom as much as it is possible. But liberty ends where the freedom of others is reduced significantly. Yes, you have the freedom to lick the toilet bowl. But then stay at home, don't infect others and don't turn up blocking hospital spaces.

4. Staying healthy is a civil duty. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to say that "the world needs you, so we want you to be healthy". Let me get this straight: the world does not need you, and it does not care. What I do mean is that your lifestyle choices should not result in clogging up emergency capacity. For example, in the case of Covid-19-SARS2, it is evident from Chinese and Italian data that for example, smokers are eight times more likely to end up on a ventilator in an emergency room and they have significantly higher mortality. Can anybody explain why there are still people smoking and tobacco companies are still allowed selling while at the same time, the world is scrambling to produce enough ICU ventilators? The same applies to other lifestyle choices. For example, obesity does does not just rhyme on stupidity. Perhaps for those who need this, a campaign like “Fasting for victory” will help.

5. It is worth the economic impact. The whole discussion, whether it's worth tanking the US economy to "save 2.5 % of the population, which is anyway unproductive" is more than cynical. It would be genocide. Just do the math, if you can: with 330 million Americans that are more than 8 million dead. Just as a comparison, the US lost around 0.5 million in World War II. So, when Trump sees himself like a "Wartime President", it may be that he means he is at war with his own people. That's new for America. They usually are at war with others to distract from their own problems. Boris Johnson at least still infected himself, bragging that he was shaking hands with Covid-19 patients just a while ago. He also wanted a steep gamble on the lives by inducing herd immunity. I thought "mad cow disease" was overcome. Perhaps Boris had a steak too much back then. Wishing him good health.

6. The world is not on holiday. Things work relatively smoothly and structures are still there. It’s not only the supermarket cashier, nurse, bus driver, train conductor, policeman which are all still working to keep things running. It’s also millions who take things back home and into their own (disinfected) hands. I find the sense of community and level of cooperation at this time really amazing. This will also change the way we work and lead in the future, I am sure. Of course, there are also a few who may have trouble getting out of the bed, getting dressed and hang in their loungewear all day checking the “Life updates” online “informing themselves”. But they would have been lazy in the office also. There it’s just easier to look busy. Just call a meeting or do a workshop.

The only thing, I am personally missing are the museums, concerts and libraries. Even travelling I don’t miss much, having gone through quite a bit of travel chaos recently. I was never really fond of eating out, as I prefer cooking myself. Shopping I despise and I enjoy the cities empty. I also like that manners matter again, people keep their distance and are more kind and tolerant. The virus does not distinguish between race and social status. I know many want to go “back to normal” as soon as possible. I don’t want. It should not be called “social distancing” anyway, because it is just doing the opposite. Real social distancing is what we had before.

Face masks back then, pleague time (Source: Public Domain)

When is Doomsday for Germany in the "Do-nothing Scenario"? - It's Friday, April 3rd

There has been a debate about the low Covid-19 mortality in Germany, especially when looking at Italy. I could not make sense myself of the Italian numbers, even I was playing around with Bayes Theorem trying to sort out the effects of preconditions and Covid-19. One disaster the Italians have to suffer is the shortage of ventilators and intensive care beds. Some say: “This can never happen in Germany”, and think the measures of public life shutdown are overdone. Well, don’t be too sure about that. Let me just do a quick estimate, in a “do-nothing scenario” when Germany would run out of ventilators in intensive care - not a scientific one, but like I would do it in a job interview.

We have 30 000 ventilator places and are able to install as of today 50 more daily. 50 % of these places could be made available for Covid-19 patients. About 5 % of these patients need approximately a week of ventilation in intensive care. Total infections are going up exponentially and we are today at 22672 confined positive (as of the Robert Koch Institut). If you approximate the total infections in Germany by day with an exponential curve, this fits into the last 23 days with a Pearson coefficient of 0.82. Please download the excel sheet by clicking here. By the way, I am doing there the trick with a coordinate transformation, then a linear regression and then re-transform. If we say doomsday is the day we cannot supply every patient in need with a ventilator, then this is next week on April 3rd, which is Friday. Just 3 weeks later we would have an absolute disaster over 30 000 patients without intensive care ventilation. Now you may argue about the numbers in some details, and maybe some are not too exact. But generally what we have is an exponential curve of patients crossing a linear one of increased ventilator capacity. So, it does not really matter to argue about the digits. Unless we break the exponential growth, as China did it before us, we will be in a mess. There are different approaches around in doing so. But we now picked one, which makes sense and let’s see how it goes next week Friday.

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse (1887) by Viktor Vasnetsov (Copyright: public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apocalypse_vasnetsov.jpg)

Grounded in Germany

We are now in Europe, where China was six weeks ago. The infection rates of Covid-19 are running up exponentially, and measures are in place, limiting travel and winding down public life. But it will take at least two weeks to see the effect. Even rich countries are experiencing capacity problems in intensive care units, and research on treatment and prevention is running high. There was the news that the US Government offered an exclusivity contract to German company CureVac in Tübingen to supply a vaccine to protect Americans, in case their mRNA method is successful in developing one quickly. Some even say, there was an offer of 1 bn USD on the table to take over the company. Curvac itself in a call announced that the medical condition of the CEO, who is now represented by a deputy has nothing to do with the visit to the White House, and they can not confirm any offer coming from the US. This is actually a very interesting call, of you have an hour to spare. By the way, why does it remain me of the German language training advert of Berlitz ((click here to watch)? Well, fair enough: it's "America first" and the "pursue of happiness" is in their constitution - their happiness obviously. We all were a bit disappointed when apparently the current US President was tested negative on Covid-19. The idea that he gets downed with a virus from China, which has a Mexican sounding name (Corona), would have been hilarious. But not the time for making jokes on the disease. It's too severe for that. And of course, we hope all (including our American friends) get will over it quickly. And over the next one also.

In Germany, public life is down severely. It will depend on whether people stick to the rules in the next whether we will get a curfew. Bavaria and some cities already announced this. I experience people here as calm, careful and helping each other out. Also, all the cancellations now are taken with the utmost goodwill by companies. I had to do a lot of travel cancellations and only experienced friendly and generous solutions. Yes, there are sometimes some empty supermarket shelves and personal tragedies, which social media and equally bad publications like the "Bild" jump on. Generally, such a crisis make it easier to distinguish "the good, the bad, and the evil". But most are good. Of course, when people lose their loved ones, and hospitals now procure iPads to make the hours of dying less lonely, we all shiver.

I also see some catalytic effect for things where a breakthrough was necessary anyway. For example, the acceptance of video conferencing instead of physical meetings, home office reducing commuting volume, integration of distance learning in education (and learning how to do it effectively), electronic payment instead of cash handling, automation and robotics, vaccine developments using modern mRNA methods (finally the “Ethics committee” is shutting up), and lastly also just better manners between people and improved personal hygiene. You see less bad behaving teenagers, nobody spits in the floor, and I was anyway really fed up by all this hugging and kissing as a greeting even of people I don’t know much. I looked at the 10 rules of Hygiene from the German Government website. And honestly, if people did not learn this as a child already, then it’s really time to learn it now. The new rule of 1.5 meters distance between each other, is for me personally less of social distancing, as it falls short of my lifetime requirement for everybody who comes closer than 3 meters has to obtain a visa. Still, this will transform the way we live in quite some way, and I think for the better. Till then, don’t forget it’s springtime. Easter is coming. A new year is lifting out of the winter. And we still have toilet paper. There is a lot to be happy about.

Spring time starting in times of shut down.

Friday 13th, 2020

Despite some outliers buying toilet paper and noodles, we get so far quite gracefully through this Covid-19. Since my last blogpost, the disease has been officially renamed. I was extremely surprised by how fast Malta actually implemented mandatory quarantine for people coming from risk regions. On Thursday it was also Germany, so Lufthansa cancelled all services to Malta. I should have thought twice to book myself onto a Friday 13th. Then on Friday 13th itself, Malta imposed obligatory quarantine for anybody entering from any country. Immediately three logistic hubs supplying food were set up, and delivery organised. Well, contemporary Maltese food is a bit “English”, you know what I mean, but it will supply you with more than the calories needed. Medication plans for the elderly were put on the road to have them avoid coming to the hospital for dispensing. All very swift and quite well thought through. I am even more impressed because looking at Malta, we have a county which in normal times can’t even implement traffic rules. But when things get tough, you can get a bit of a feeling why these islands have been invincible so many times. Sure, these things are hard to do. And of course, they hurt the economy. Now is the question of how to minimise the effects of that.

I was very impressed by how China was able to impose measures so quickly and curb the new infections relatively fast. Of course, not everything goes perfect, especially when as a first-mover it was not even clear what we were up against. And the effects were not just slowing down the infection rate in China effectively, but also it was a service to the rest of the world, winning time. Now it’s up to Europe and soon also to the USA to learn from that and define their strategies. Actually, this already happened in many cases. A little less dramatic, but I hope equally effective.

It took me another day in Malta until I was able to get a seat on a flight to Amsterdam, and from there I continued by train. Back in “Mainland Europe” people are calm, but take care of hygiene quite a bit. It appears that solidarity is on the rise between travellers. It’s not cool anymore to be dirty, put feet on the seat opposite, spit on the floor, or vent bad smell. It actually never was cool, but some people thought it would be. It could be that also in other aspects, there are some collateral improvements. Suddenly, people really use digital tools to avoid meetings, really do home office and avoid commutes. Last but not least, pollution is down. So is the stock market. But that’s fine. These kinds of crisis seem to have always a common pattern. And one outcome is, that a lot of “bullshit” disappears, all across the spectrum from smelly hippies to financial speculators. All gone. I don’t even know where they are now. On the other hand, creativity is blossoming. Italians perform operas at the window of the apartment they a quarantined in, others find ways to produce protective gear at home, convert household chemicals into disinfectants and find ways to keep operating under these conditions. With all the damage and tragedy acknowledged, I personally do like such circumstances more than boom times, when even the dumbest mind stays afloat in the current. Of course now they won’t sink. But this is a good exercise for the bigger problems we urgently have to solve on this planet.

View on Kalkara on the way to Birgu. I was not subject of the quarantine, but actually there worse things than sitting here on the balcony for two weeks.