今早為Asian Medical Students Association Hong Kong (AMSAHK)的新一屆執行委員會就職典禮作致詞分享嘉賓，題目為「疫情中的健康不公平」。
感謝他們的熱情款待以及為整段致詞拍了影片。以下我附上致詞的英文原稿：

It's been my honor to be invited to give the closing remarks for the Inauguration Ceremony for the incoming executive committee of the Asian Medical Students' Association Hong Kong (AMSAHK) this morning. A video has been taken for the remarks I made regarding health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic (big thanks to the student who withstood the soreness of her arm for holding the camera up for 15 minutes straight), and here's the transcript of the main body of the speech that goes with this video:

//The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, continues to be rampant around the world since early 2020, resulting in more than 55 million cases and 1.3 million deaths worldwide as of today. (So no! It’s not a hoax for those conspiracy theorists out there!) A higher rate of incidence and deaths, as well as worse health-related quality of life have been widely observed in the socially disadvantaged groups, including people of lower socioeconomic position, older persons, migrants, ethnic minority and communities of color, etc. While epidemiologists and scientists around the world are dedicated in gathering scientific evidence on the specific causes and determinants of the health inequalities observed in different countries and regions, we can apply the Social Determinants of Health Conceptual Framework developed by the World Health Organization team led by the eminent Prof Sir Michael Marmot, world’s leading social epidemiologist, to understand and delineate these social determinants of health inequalities related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to this framework, social determinants of health can be largely categorized into two types – 1) the lower stream, intermediary determinants, and 2) the upper stream, structural and macro-environmental determinants. For the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that the lower stream factors may include material circumstances, such as people’s living and working conditions. For instance, the nature of the occupations of these people of lower socioeconomic position tends to require them to travel outside to work, i.e., they cannot work from home, which is a luxury for people who can afford to do it. This lack of choice in the location of occupation may expose them to greater risk of infection through more transportation and interactions with strangers. We have also seen infection clusters among crowded places like elderly homes, public housing estates, and boarding houses for foreign domestic helpers. Moreover, these socially disadvantaged people tend to have lower financial and social capital – it can be observed that they were more likely to be deprived of personal protective equipment like face masks and hand sanitizers, especially during the earlier days of the pandemic. On the other hand, the upper stream, structural determinants of health may include policies related to public health, education, macroeconomics, social protection and welfare, as well as our governance… and last, but not least, our culture and values. If the socioeconomic and political contexts are not favorable to the socially disadvantaged, their health and well-being will be disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Therefore, if we, as a society, espouse to address and reduce the problem of health inequalities, social determinants of health cannot be overlooked in devising and designing any public health-related strategies, measures and policies.

Although a higher rate of incidence and deaths have been widely observed in the socially disadvantaged groups, especially in countries with severe COVID-19 outbreaks, this phenomenon seems to be less discussed and less covered by media in Hong Kong, where the disease incidence is relatively low when compared with other countries around the world. Before the resurgence of local cases in early July, local spread of COVID-19 was sporadic and most cases were imported. In the earlier days of the pandemic, most cases were primarily imported by travelers and return-students studying overseas, leading to a minor surge between mid-March and mid-April of 874 new cases. Most of these cases during Spring were people who could afford to travel and study abroad, and thus tended to be more well-off. Therefore, some would say the expected social gradient in health impact did not seem to exist in Hong Kong, but may I remind you that, it is only the case when we focus on COVID-19-specific incidence and mortality alone. But can we really deduce from this that COVID-19-related health inequality does not exist in Hong Kong? According to the Social Determinants of Health Framework mentioned earlier, the obvious answer is “No, of course not.” And here’s why…

In addition to the direct disease burden, the COVID-19 outbreak and its associated containment measures (such as economic lockdown, mandatory social distancing, and change of work arrangements) could have unequal wider socioeconomic impacts on the general population, especially in regions with pervasive existing social inequalities. Given the limited resources and capacity of the socioeconomically disadvantaged to respond to emergency and adverse events, their general health and well-being are likely to be unduly and inordinately affected by the abrupt changes in their daily economic and social conditions, like job loss and insecurity, brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak and the corresponding containment and mitigation measures of which the main purpose was supposedly disease prevention and health protection at the first place. As such, focusing only on COVID-19 incidence or mortality as the outcomes of concern to address health inequalities may leave out important aspects of life that contributes significantly to people’s health. Recently, my research team and I collaborated with Sir Michael Marmot in a Hong Kong study, and found that the poor people in Hong Kong fared worse in every aspects of life than their richer counterparts in terms of economic activity, personal protective equipment, personal hygiene practice, as well as well-being and health after the COVID-19 outbreak. We also found that part of the observed health inequality can be attributed to the pandemic and its related containment measures via people’s concerns over their own and their families’ livelihood and economic activity. In other words, health inequalities were contributed by the pandemic even in a city where incidence is relatively low through other social determinants of health that directly concerned the livelihood and economic activity of the people. So in this study, we confirmed that focusing only on the incident and death cases as the outcomes of concern to address health inequalities is like a story half-told, and would severely truncate and distort the reality.

Truth be told, health inequality does not only appear after the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, it is a pre-existing condition in countries and regions around the world, including Hong Kong. My research over the years have consistently shown that people in lower socioeconomic position tend to have worse physical and mental health status. Nevertheless, precisely because health inequality is nothing new, there are always voices in our society trying to dismiss the problem, arguing that it is only natural to have wealth inequality in any capitalistic society. However, in reckoning with health inequalities, we need to go beyond just figuring out the disparities or differences in health status between the poor and the rich, and we need to raise an ethically relevant question: are these inequalities, disparities and differences remediable? Can they be fixed? Can we do something about them? If they are remediable, and we can do something about them but we haven’t, then we’d say these inequalities are ultimately unjust and unfair. In other words, a society that prides itself in pursuing justice must, and I say must, strive to address and reduce these unfair health inequalities. Borrowing the words from famed sociologist Judith Butler, “the virus alone does not discriminate,” but “social and economic inequality will make sure that it does.” With COVID-19, we learn that it is not only the individuals who are sick, but our society. And it’s time we do something about it.

Thank you very much!//

Please join me in congratulating the incoming executive committee of AMSAHK and giving them the best wishes for their future endeavor!

Roger Chung, PhD
Assistant Professor, CUHK JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, @CUHK Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學 - CUHK
Associate Director, CUHK Institute of Health Equity

【Like they did in 2016?】#中英對照​
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As November 3 approaches, many pollsters are showing polls to convey that former Vice President Joe Biden has a commanding lead and on pace to win the presidency much like what they said about Hillary Clinton's chances in 2016.​
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Just as in 2016, there are tea leaves indicating that President Trump is potentially on pace to make this race very close and perhaps repeat the result of 2016.​
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#想見你
#每日一歌
#泡麵好聲音

不知道大家最近有沒有一起「想見你」啊?
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想見你 想見你 想見你
詞曲：八三夭 阿璞

當愛情遺落成遺跡
When love becomes relics,
用象形刻劃成回憶
write memories with pictogram,
想念幾個世紀
how many centuries of yearnings,
才是刻骨銘心？
could be worthy of the eternal love stories?

若能回到冰河時期
If we go back to ice age,
多想把你抱緊處理
I would hold you tightly.
你的笑多療癒
Your smile is the cure,
讓人生也甦醒
bring me back to life.

失去 你的風景 像座廢墟
Landscape without you becomes debris,
像失落文明
like a long lost civilization.
能否 一場奇蹟 一線生機
Is there a chance to witness the miracle,
能不能 有再一次 相遇
that I can see you again?

想見你 只想見你 未來過去
Missing you, desire to see you, from past to future,
我只想見你
I want to see you once more.
穿越了 千個萬個 時間線裡
Crossing thousands of timelines,
人海裡相依
Stay closely among crowds.
用盡了 邏輯心機 推理愛情
Exhaust all my abilities of logic thinking,
最難解的謎
to deduce the hardest mystery of love.
會不會 妳也 和我一樣
Maybe you are the same,
在等待一句 我願意
waiting for three magic words "Yes, I do".

任時光更迭了四季
Time pass by and seasons change,
任宇宙物換或星移
Stars transformed within interstellar,
永遠不退流行
What never go out-of-fashioned
是青澀的真心
Is the purest heart.

未來 先進科技 無法模擬
What future high-tech unable to simulate,
你擁抱暖意
is the temperature of your hug
如果 另個時空 另個身體
If we travel to another dimension with another avatar
能不能 換另一種 結局
can we change the ending?

想見你 只想見你 未來過去
Missing you, desire to see you, from past to future,
我只想見你
I only want to see you.
穿越了 千個萬個 時間線裡
Crossing thousands of timelines,
人海裡相依
Stay closely among crowds.
用盡了 邏輯心機 推理愛情
Exhaust all my abilities of logics
最難解的謎
to deduce the hardest mystery of love.
會不會 妳也 和我一樣
Maybe you are the same,
在等待一句 我願意
waiting for three magic words "Yes, I do"

想見你 每個朝夕
I want to see you day and night,
想見你 每個表情
I want to see all the facial expressions of you,
想穿越 每個平行
I want to go across every cross-universe,
在未來 和過去 緊緊相依
to stay with you in the past and future.
想follow 每則IG
I want to follow every IG,
不錯過 你的蹤跡
Never lose your trace.
會不會 你也一樣
Maybe you are the same,
等待著那句 我願意
waiting for the three magic words "Yes, I do".

-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-
Please watch: "港澳不學拼音也能學中文!!?? 【麵Talk】/ 泡麵"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3koV...
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