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The knowledge that the virus  caused human to human transmission and that it spreads to wide parts of the population very quickly were critical pieces of information that remained with Chinese epidemiologists, doctors and medical researchers, and were suppressed by local authorites in Wuhan.  Yet China's version of the U.S. CDC, China's Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, modeled on the U.S. control efforts worked effectively to identify the problem. Virologist Gao Fu, heads China's CDC. This report in Germany's Der Spiegel says Mr. Fu made it a habit to scan China's internet before bedtime for any signs of possible disease outbreaks. On the night of December 30 he came across rumors of an internal memo from the Wuhan Health Commission of an outbreak of a vaguely worded lung disease. When he called the Wuhan health authority he found their answers to be evasive which alarmed him. The next morning December 31 Mr. Fu sent the first of three teams to Wuhan which is how China was able to identify the problem, in the sense that Chinese authorites in Beijing were to rely on Dr Gao Fu to overcome the problem of Wuhan provincial authorites. He informed the World Health Organization Beijing office on that day. The Der Spiegel report says "shortly afterward," the Seattle Times in its report says this was about New Years Day 2020- Mr Fu made a call to Dr. Redfield, head of the U.S. Centre for Disease Control, who was on vacation. Redfield is deeply disturbed on hearing this from Fu and they have conversations over the next few days to the point that Dr. Gao Fu is in tears about what has happened. On January 1 Taiwanese public health authorites shared the information with WHO that the cornonavirus was a human to human transmission, would the Taiwanese authorites not have shared it with the U.S. the same week during calls from the U.S. CDC or other public health authorites alarmed about the situation. (The WHO was proving useless by Jan 14 when it contradicted Taiwan's more reliable assessment  on Jan 14 going by the letter from president Trump to WHO). On January 6 a few days later Dr Redfield and Dr. Azar head of Health and Human Services ask China for permission to send a team of CDC U.S. experts to China. This is cited in the U.S. letter to the World Health organization- the lack of human to human transmission information being given to the U.S. officially early by China. A risk that could have been a topic of conversation between the U.S. and China heads of CDC. That letter from president Trump also points out that the team of experts the U.S. planned to send was not accepted by China till Feb 16, one and half months after that series of conversations between Dr. Gao Fu of China CDC and Dr. Redfield of U.S. CDC in an alert message.  In effect removing one of the key defences for the U.S. and Europe in making their own defensive actions and plans, laying the basis of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic affecting millions of people. Dr Redfield is a AIDS researcher at the University of Maryland who spent most of his life trying to control spread of HIV and was appointed by president Trump to head CDC agency in 2018. He set a goal of eliminating AIDS by 2030 and is more comfortable with aids patients and research than the bureaucratic nature of agencies- CDC has about 11,000 employees. Once it was clear that a team of U.S. experts was not given permission to make its own assessment in Wuhan in the few days after January 6 offer to sent the team to China by Redfield of U.S. CDC and Dr. Azar, would it have alerted the U.S. that something was seriously heading the wrong way for a epidemic risk. That letter of president Trump cites how the head of WHO during the first SARS crisis in 2003, Dr. Harlem Brundtland acted when she faced China's lack of cooperation during that crisis by saying openly that this was a danger to world public health and millions. Could CDC in the U.S. and the other connected health authorites have taken the responsibility and filled Dr Brundtland's role in this crisis, that the WHO failed to perform?    ...

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Ezra Klein on the three questions on which the Supreme Court will decide after three days of hearings on March 26-28, 2012- the Anti-Injunction act, The Individual Mandate, and Medicaid Expansion. Related to the Individual Mandate question are Severability issues.

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Ban on sale of smoking products for 17 year olds (those born before 2009) in a new law for Britain. Smoking cost -64,000 deaths a year, 500,000 people living in poverty, $29 billion ocst to Britain and higher costs for the National Health Service. 5.3 million or 10% of UK adults are smokers most want to quit and wish thay never took up smoking.

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Europe has few options on Greenland beyond a statement that "Greenland belongs to its people" knowing Denmark was a colonial power, says Le Monde. Peary  of US Navy discovered northern Greenland and claimed it for the US in 1880's, US offered to buy it in 1867 with Alaska Purchase. And under several administrations including Harry Truman in 1946. As the US commanders in chief in 1946 it is "completely useless for Denmark," vital for the US and security on the eastern seaboard of the US.  Denmark has done little for Greenland or the Inuit population of Greenland, in health, education and transportation.

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Scott Kupor, head of Office of Personnel Management for federal workforce, says only 7% of federal workforce is under 30 years- he plans to bring younger people into the government. In 2025 383,000 people were laid off and 123,000 hired. Now the government agencies are recruiting new people based on the new priorities of who should be hired, including bringing in younger people who are underrepresented in the federal workforce and can bring new energy and knowledge to the federal agencies. Kupor wants to rebrand the government as launchpad for college graduates and early career professionals,  and bring in people in health care, program management and technology roles, says The Washington Post.

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How Phillips is changing itself to focus on new areas such as elderly health care. The acquisition of Lifeline which is a call service for elderly patients that helps them for independent living. products are being redesigned for consumer health care. One such product is a HeartStart Home Defibrillator which costs $1200 without prescription at drug stores. Ivo Lurvink heads the consumer healthcare division formed in 2004 with the goal of tapping opportunities outside of hospitals. As Phillips new CEO sees it hospitals care is expensive and more and more people are becoming savvy and smart about taking care of themselves with products available and more products need to be designed with them in mind. In targeting needs of elderly Phillips has identified independent living as an important market and has developed a "senior solutions sweet spot" as the kind of customers in this group it would like to target. to get an idea what Phillips is trying to dream up in redesigned or new products, Ivo Lurvink is looking at the broken bones that 350,000 Americans who fall and break bones have to struggle with. Could Philipps come up with a product that detects motion and balance? Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee sees the trend as being health care is being increasingly pushed out of hospitals which are expensive and into homes and clinics, and patients are behaving more like consumers and asking smart questions of what will be best for them. Philips has closed most of its electronics factories, its components division, and sold its seminconductor business to private equity firms for $7.4 billion. Its a big shift for a technology company but lower priced Asian imports have convinced Philips that it must make a shift, especially after losses in 2001 of over 2 billion euros and in 2002 of 3 billion euros. The professional medical products division was a bright spot in a recovery with earnings growth of 40%. It sells large equipment to hospitals. Gerard Kleisterlee who took over as CEO of Phillips in 2001 is making a change that is also being made at GE and Siemens as health care becomes increasingly important. Kleisterlee is himself an engineer an after the post tech bubble asked himself "what is the hand of cards that I have and how do I playthem?" Changing its orientation and moving into new products with better margins and less competition in high growth markets such as elderly care is the result of this reassessment. ...

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Chris Cillizza of CNN shows here that back home in Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins hears from people saying again and again that they support her stand against the Republican health care bill. The rural and elderly are hurt most by this bill and Cillizza says Maine has a lot of these people.  He also cites the opposition of Republican Senator Rand Paul who doesn't like the other costly things tagged onto this bill, and wants a clean bill free of "billion dollar ornaments."

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Problems older workers face as they try to remain active, stay healthy with active participation, contributing to the economy. In societies like the U.S. where age has different meanings compared to Asian societies, older workers have to conceal their age. This goes against the need for greater workforce participation of older workers to make up for the effect of aging societies and fewer younger workers.

It is a good thing that labour force participation rates of workers in their 50's, 60's and 70's are growing, good for the health of the workers, good for their financial health nearing retirement and good for the productive contributions to the economy. Imagine all that experience going to waste.

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Central Huijin, part of China's sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corporation, bought shares of China's four major banks in October 2011 to prevent steep price declines. China's bank stocks have lost about a third of their value in 2011. The four major banks- China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China- control two-thirds of the banking industry in China. In China's interlocking system of relationships between the state, the banks and the state controlled industrial companies, Central Huijin owns 35.4% of Industrial and Commercial Bank, 67.6% of Bank of China, and similiar stakes in the other 2 banks. It was created in 2003 to bail out China's banks after bad loan losses, and was transferred to China Investment Corporation in 2007. As part of the 2007 move bonds were issued by CIC to compensate the central bank. This means the banks pay dividends to CIC so that it can make payments on the bonds. Today the 4 major banks pay half of their earnings in dividends to CIC. CIC chief Lou Jiwei, says Central Huijin needs 300 million renminbi a day, or $47 million to pay interest on the bonds to the central bank. The 4 major banks are also under pressure from China's regulators to increase their capital reserves, because of large bad loans to local governments after the global financial crisis of 2008....

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Churchill came up with the idea of British restaurants that serve nutritious meals at reasonable cost so that no family would suffer from lack of access to healthy food at moderate prices. This would insulate people from the high prices during the war in the 1940's for food and energy. The Guardian shows these public diners in 1940's Britain. At its peak there were more British restaurants of this kind than McDonalds's or Weatherspoon's exist today. There is a need for this type of government supported food place that serves affordable meals serving quality food ethically produced as a new form of national infrastructure. Nourish Scotland is calling for reviving it today. It tackles health inequality and food insecurity. Abigail McCall, project officer at Nourish Scotland, says- "For other aspects of our wellbeing – water, transport, healthcare, even wifi – we have built the public infrastructure to ensure that everyone has quality, universal access. We are missing that in relation to food,” said Abigail McCall, project officer at Nourish Scotland. “Poor diets have overtaken smoking as the leading cause of preventable ill health for some time now. We need the government to make a bold intervention in our food environment, and invest in delivering what the market doesn’t: healthy, climate-friendly food in a convenient way and at an affordable price."   ...

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Only 23% of meals in America include a vegetable. The number of dinners made at home with a salad dropped to 17% in 2010 compared to 22% in 1994. Salads ordered at restaurants dropped to 5% in 2010 from 10% in 1989, according to NPD research company in its 25th edition of "Eating Patterns in America." The U.S. is going backwards in good eating habits and no enough attention is being paid to this in the debate about cost of health care. Their is a clear connection between good eating habits and health, and while invention and use of the latest research and innovations in health care are lauded, the decline in patterns of healthy living and food habits are receiving less attention.

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The higher risks of stress, loneliness and exhaustion during the coronavirus for office workers. Britain's BUPA offers some advice on how to handle this with other workers so that mental wellbeing is preserved.

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Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, points out some basic truths about health care as it is practiced today in the USA, and healthcare spending as it stands today. He questions whether starting out with extra spending plans to provide coverage to all will help solve the basic problems facing American health care. Too many tests and diagnostic procedures used by doctors is not aproblem that will be solved by spending more money to cover everyone. And government taking on more spending to cover all will not address all the other major shortcomings of the American way of practicing medicine, like prescribing a battery of tests, that tend to drive up costs, to just mention one of the problems. And it will not address any of the shortcomings in the way Americans take care of their health, diet, exercize and healthy lifestyles. THese are critical to get good health outcomes for the people, and which combined with careful spending of dollars where it will provide the greatest benefit, is the only way the health care solutions can be found....

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This Guardian report gives a discussion with Austin based Dr. Attia of Early Medical and ways to ensure healthspan- adopting healthy patterns of living including food and exercize, sleep, that start at an early age. The approach is that prevention should be the best way to tackle health issues that can develop later in life and the time for that is early, right now. Most of it is well established based on exercizing well, and weight exercize routine for strengthening muscle. It could just as easily include yoga or pilates, and sports. Nutrition plays an equally important part.

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Mr. Alter's "His Very Best," shows Jimmy Carter much more than a one term president, a president who brought compassion, decency and transparency to the presidency. Here a critical care physician describes Jimmy Carter's decision for "hospice" care and what it means to spend the last months not just a few days in the company of family at home. Carter had foresight to put solar panels on the White House, and started initiatives in housing and health, and maintained an active healthy lifestyle that is a role model for all Americans.

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UnitedHealthcare says it will keep parts of the healthcare law relating to preventive healthcare services without co-payments, allowing parents to keep children on insurance till age of 26, even if the Supreme Court rules against the healthcare law. Most insurers see these parts of the law that are popular quite favorably.

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A diet that has a good amount of fruits and vegetables as well as healthy grains is needed to keep body inflammation levels low, say experts in this video from DW.com. A varied diet is essential for good health. Keeping away from colas and sugary drinks is essential. Adding a good mix of healthy foods is also essential with whatever fruits and vegetables that are available in the season. Lower inflammation levels through healthy diets also help the body to avoid obesity and diseases that relate to obesity. During the coronavirus good nutrition and exercise can make a huge difference. In this video experts show that even changes over 6-8 weeks in adding more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, adding any form of exercize that appeals to one, can make a difference in building immunity levels against the coronavirus.