HK$20 million, 87,000 tests and zero infections at Hong Kong airport. There's a better way of targeting coronavirus

I hopped on the inter-island ferry last Friday to see a few musician mates in Cheung Chau and lament the lack of live music, what with all the venues cowering from the coronavirus. On the way, I noticed more of those little stickers that have been appearing around town assuring me that surfaces were sprayed with Covid-19 annihilating jollop and were safe to touch. These have been appearing on public transport such as the buses and ferries around the territory that I use frequently.

Pulling into Cheung Chau, a ferryman appeared with a well-used plastic spray gun, first spraying the high part of the passenger cabin, and then pointing the thing lower down, at which point the bottle fell off. His sigh as he picked it up told me, it was clearly not for the first time.

On route to Cheung Chau. Photo: Neil Newman

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Chasing after any surface where Covid-19 may lurk and spraying them down is a costly and labour intensive affair, as is mass testing without many clues of where existing infections are - something which Hong Kong International Airport has just discovered.

Between February 4 and 25, all of the 87,000 people working at the airport were tested for Covid-19. That sounds like an awful lot of people - and indeed it is, taking 21 days to test them all - but there is a small city's worth of people on the construction site for Hong Kong's third runway and the repurposing of Terminal 2. At the government-mandated Covid-19 test rate of HK$240 dollars each, this exercise may well have cost Hong Kong International Airport HK$20.88 million. How many cases did they find?

Zero.

Two days ago, the HKIA launched another scheme to introduce voluntary weekly testing for certain groups of staff and reiterated its commitment to ongoing testing of all staff, with the airport continuing to shoulder the cost.

In keeping with my belief that I'm not just here to sit with my morning toast and criticise, but rather to offer suggestions for improvement, I believe there may be a better way to deal with this.

A hospital bed with copper handles. Photo: Neil Newman

WOULD YOU BELIEVE ...

Certain metals have self-sanitising properties: a natural, antimicrobial effect that will kill a broad range of viruses and bacteria that spread easily on surfaces and will remain an ever-present threat. Unfortunately, stainless steel, which is often associated with modernity and cleanliness, is not one of those metals. All those stainless-steel surfaces that we see - in hospitals and restaurant kitchens and on grab bars on public transport -are quite filthy. Someone with bacteria or viruses on their hands has a decent shot at transmitting them to the next person who touches the same surface. According to the experts at the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, Covid-19 is infective for seven days on stainless steel - the same length of time as on the surgical masks we keep touching.

In a 2018 study by the Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, the potential antimicrobial properties of a range of metal-coated surfaces, including silver, titanium, copper, iron, molybdenum, zinc and silicon (which was used as a control), were tested on three potentially pathogenic bacteria: Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes - all nasty bugs that hide in kitchens.

It was not a surprise to the research staff in MMU that copper, with antimicrobial properties that have been known for centuries, demonstrated the greatest antimicrobial effect. Silver came second, followed somewhat unexpectedly by zinc, with titanium displaying the least antimicrobial potential.

More recently, the University of Southampton has focused particularly on copper and found that it is highly effective against just about all flu and cold bugs, including many coronaviruses, in a study that has since been confirmed by other institutions. A new study by the same researchers at Southampton, found that the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that causes Covid-19 can become inactive on copper surfaces in as little as one minute.

So how does this help? By covering commonly touched surfaces in crowded environments with one of these metals you create points of contact where viruses are likely to be deposited, and dealt with. For example, this approach will have several benefits:

" Making the intended places to grab highly visible will advertise to people where it is safe to hang on.

" Cleaners will know where to focus their efforts since everyone grabs the same spot and testing staff will know where to look for residual viruses, currently the remains of the SARS-Cov-2 pathogen is of interest - perhaps after rush hour.

" The sturdy and naturally antimicrobial metal will constantly work on lowering the concentration of viruses and bacteria.

Of metals that are potentially useful as a very visible handhold, copper is perhaps the best suited, being both effective and noticeable. Silver and zinc look similarly reflective as stainless steel. Retrofitted copper surfaces are already appearing overseas on mass transit, hospitals and in supermarkets, and I think it's about to become commonplace. In the longer term, metals with antimicrobial properties can be integrated as alloys in fittings on new transit vehicles and buildings.

Copper handles at the supermarket. Photo: Neil Newman

GOOD THINKING, 99

This brings me to the subject of investment. The prices of those antibacterial metals I mentioned earlier - copper, silver and zinc - have all been strong so far this year. And although silver appears to have ended its run, copper and zinc continue.

In addition to antibacterial surfaces, there are new and expanding applications for copper. Electric cars contain about 83kg of the stuff, compared with just 22kg in a typical petrol or diesel driven car. There are also emerging technologies that may replace the widespread use of silver in solar cells with copper. The return of copper in the heat exchangers of air conditioners, displaced by aluminium due to cost, may also be a welcome move by health specialists - or at least a copper coating where warm air meets cold metal.

Copper prices have doubled this year, and whilst there may be room for further price appreciation, the increase in demand will ultimately directly benefit the copper producers. The largest producer in the world is Codelco, which is owned by the Chilean Government. The next largest producers, Glencore, BHP Billiton and Freeport, are of a similar size and have listed equities. There is also the Global X Copper Miners ETFs (ticker COPX US).

In the meantime, hopefully the fight against Covid-19 in Hong Kong will become more targeted than the blind chasing of infections, disinfecting places that don't need it and testing people that don't have it. A more sensible approach is needed to wipe it out.

Neil Newman is a thematic portfolio strategist focused on pan-Asian equity markets

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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