What does Life-Sparring mean?

Life-Sparring is a term expressing the idea of introducing “sparring” into our regular lives. Not necessarily in the sense of martial arts, but by being vulnerable, putting our ideas and concepts out for a real test.

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I love Liverpool Football Club Manager Jürgen Klopp, ever since he came up as a club coach in Germany. His recent reaction to being asked about the Novel Corona Virus was absolutely in character and has gone viral for all the right reasons. Of course, Klopp is right to push back on being questioned about the virus. He might be the most successful football coach (soccer for you North Americans) in the world, but why should his opinion on the potential Coronavirus pandemic matter more than any other?

Now I could take a page out of Klopp's book and leave writing about Corona to the professionals, as I am apparently neither an epidemiologist nor data scientist; but, let's be real here, if I would only write about topics, I am an expert in, there would be no articles in this blog. Over the past years, I wrote about stress, genome sequencing, keto diet, running, quantified self gadgets, and frankly, I am no expert in any of those topics.

The whole idea of Life-Sparring is trying to live up to your full potential as a pretty average person, with average talents at best.

So here are the preliminary takeaways from the current COVID-19 pandemic, from an unqualified non-expert, yours truly:

1) Stay informed, read beyond the headlines and draw your conclusions

I follow the live-updated COVID-19 tally at Worldometers.info since the first few weeks of the outbreak, to always have a full picture of the situation without any additional comment.

I also follow mainstream news like CNN, Hong Kong's SCMP, or Germany's Spiegel, but understand that any news outlets must be interpreted taking their political coloring into consideration. I always recommend Bloomberg to everyone, they often provide great insight beyond just the pure economical consequences. In addition, I follow ZeroHedge.com, a somewhat controversial outlet with a tendency towards conspiracy theories. Now, I would not suggest you follow ZeroHedge; if you have high blood pressure, you are prone to anxieties or tend to believe everything you read in black and white. But with enough critical distance, ZeroHedge or similar sources can be quite useful, sharpening your awareness of potential black swan events.

If you followed these accounts closely, you should not have been too surprised about the local outbreak in faraway Wuhan turning into a global pandemic.

My logic was simple: the last thing that China needed, facing an economy strained by a year of US-Sino trade war was additional bad news and economic disruptions. If the Chinese government resorted to such massive intervention in Hubei province, the situation had to be very bad. At the latest after the drama on board of the Diamond Princess was unfolding, a global outbreak seemed likely.

2) Don’t wait for your government to save you

This is no politics bashing; I believe in democracy. But the Corona situation shows again very clearly: governments are in general not impressive when it comes to reacting fast to global emergencies.

In democratic countries, you deal with bipartisanship and often the need to coordinate multiple levels of government hierarchies from federal agencies to states and municipalities. Even if federal agencies would want to react fast, they are often held back by regulations and red tape.

There is a reason why businesspeople or non-profits distributed a lot of masks in Hong Kong, not government agencies. In opposition to a government agency, a wealthy individual can decide on the spot, if he/she gets offered a position of facemasks from an overseas wholesaler. A government agency would likely have to get multiple quotes from different parties and assure that the mask type is whitelisted, before being able to issue a purchase order.

Autocratic governments might be able to react much faster. Still, as they receive their sole legitimation from being in control, autocracies tend to be notoriously bad when it comes to transparency, informing the international community or even asking for international help. Autocratic governments prioritize their survival over the wellbeing of their populous.

Luckily, even with a tardy government, not all is lost. That Hong Kong, despite being one of the most densely populated cities in the world with a lot Mainland China exposure as flattened the curve of COVID-19 so significantly is primarily credited to the very disciplined behavior of the Hong Kong society at large.

Hong Kong's public, to a large extend, took social distancing seriously. People in Hong Kong also wear masks whenever they leave their house. Apparently, this is still an extremely controversial topic, and I have had multiple intense verbal-sparring sessions with Europeans on this topic. But sorry, in my interpretation of the available data, the case for masks looks strong.

Yes, it is correct, that a standard surgical mask is not meant to protect the wearer from germs, but all others from the wearer's droplets. But hey, if everyone wears a mask there is mutual protection. And while facemasks are no guarantor, they should lower the number of potential spreading incidents in public. Isn't this what "flattening the curve" is about: reducing possible spreading events?

Publicly discouraging the use of masks for "healthy people" ignores the fact that people can be non-symptomatic carriers of the virus. It also stigmatizes wearers of masks and hence potentially discourages symptomatic persons from wearing masks. If you risk being attacked or maltreated, you might rather refrain from wearing a mask, even if you have symptoms of the virus.

And if you don't expect to get sick, why would you even stock a mask at home?

I will not be surprised if even some western governments change their stands on masks after thorough analysis. But by that time, it might be too late for the current outbreak.

Again – don't expect your government to save you.

3) Panic is a waste of energy, focus on things you actually can do

Panic is when your instincts kick in, and all reason goes through the window. The global stockpiling of toilet paper is possibly the craziest phenomenon of the Corona pandemic. Even if diarrhea has been on occasion observed as a symptom of COVID-19, your consumption of loo rolls should generally be unaffected by the virus outbreak.

I am all for respecting potential dangers, but freaking out about something that is entirely out of your control, is not very helpful. Freak out if you are about to screw something up, big time, and rush to correct it. Why panicking about a plane in turbulence if you are not the pilot flying it? Lean back and chill!

In my experience, the best receipt in the eye of a challenging situation is keeping yourself busy. After spending most of my Chinese New Year Holiday on the phone with German wholesalers of industrial safety equipment, I managed to buy a few pallets of 3M respirators. Getting those exported and shipped to Hong Kong and distributing them at my cost to friends and business partners in Hong Kong caused me so many nerves and sleepless nights, that I didn't have too much time left to worry about other things.

My skeptic view on the market reaction to the virus outbreak was another area I could focus my fidgety brain on. It seemed rather odd that markets refused to price in the massive supply-chain disruptions in China and the possibility of a global health crisis. My bet on the volatility index VIX helped a lot to cushion losses my stock-portfolio and my stock-based pension funds suffered.

There is almost always something productive that you can do, even if you only use your lock-down time to Marie Kondo the shit out of your wardrobe.

4) The World (likely) doesn’t end yet

Depending on where you are currently located, it might look rather bleak right now. But chances are pretty good, that it will get better eventually. The economy didn't end in 2008, New York City overcame the trauma of 9/11, and we will likely also overcome COVID-19.

After the initial panic, Hong Kong adjusted relatively quickly to the new normal. Food deliveries are through the roof, the hiking and bike trails are full, not just at the weekend. My office receives a steady flow of mail orders from different staff members, and whenever someone found a decent source for hand sanitizers or masks, it is quickly shared.

The economic consequences of the almost complete global shutdown will be severe and unprecedented, but that doesn't mean that the sky will not eventually brighten and that there are not a few opportunities out there. If I learned one damn thing from the financial crisis in 2008, it is that I missed out on a lot of excuses not having the "cochones" to invest in the darkest hours. An error that I will try to avoid this time around.