As we all know, Hong Kong has done epidemics before. SARS came through and affected Amoy Gardens for example pretty badly. Property prices fell to near ‘97 levels. Scared as people may have been, it gave the ever popular Gweilo population a great break from reality; companies sending employees on ‘work holidays’ to either their home country or a non-SARSed area to work. So, a recap on SARS:

1. Dropped real estate to almost decent prices
2. Gave holidays
3. Cheap drinks & massive food discounts
4. No queues
5. Saying you were SARS free was a better pick-up line than ‘I’m a banker’

So here we are with the Mexican flu, err swine flu. One falsely reported case of the piggy disease and the city gets the old masks out. Of course, the first case had to be on the Hong Kong side, and in Wan Chai no less. Oh no! Well, if we are going to track where it goes, the prostitutes in business meetings at that hotel will likely end up back in Kowloon to get this pandemic started. Almost every young Hong Kong professional is relishing this chance to get rich because secretly we all know this city is built on greed and punching others when they are down.

Lets take a moment to realize just one more thing. We are in a ‘recession’ and that ‘recession’ is dropping prices all around the city. Ask a real estate agent today for a house that is 100k a month, they will go straight to 60k. Renegotiation of rent prices has become common practice. Plus the number of ‘free’ flow champagne brunches for a fixed price at up-scale restaurants has gone through the roof. Shame such brunches are notoriously unprofitable. Good for us though.

Anyway.. back to swine flu. Lets keep the WHO screaming pandemic for as long as possible. As global pandemics usually don’t last long, keep to true SARS fashion and exploit the situation! While you’re still breathing that is.