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Should Santa's helpers at department stores get special priority for H1N1 shots?

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Marked as Best! November 18, 2009 01:02 AM
Mandatory vaccination? No. I don't think they even need to be vaccinated unless they are 20 or under. The odds that Santa or his Helpers get the virus in a really bad way are minimal, since most helpers I have seen are adults. The odds are much greater that children will get the virus from other children standing in the lines, sitting on Santa's lap right after another child who is infected but un diagnosed leaves.

I say this because we all lived through it here. My teenage son was next and he was worse than me, but when my 10 year old daughter got it, she almost died. We spent 2 weeks nursing her 24/7 every 3-4 hours with fluids to keep her hydrated, and she still developed severe dehydration & viral pneumonia from it. It's been 3 1/2 weeks since she first got the virus, and she still coughs now.
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November 18, 2009 12:02 AM
No I don't think that they should.

If you are suppling to Santa's helpers because of their exposure to children then daycare workers, teachers, etc. would demand priority as well.
http://philspector.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/teacher.jpg
If you giving priority just due to public contact then people with professions such as grocery store samplers, bus drivers, cabbies, gas station attendents, etc. would demand priority as well.
http://fumosh.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/bus-driver.gif

This may sound really cinical but...
we can do without Santa's helpers but we can not do with out health care workers.
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November 18, 2009 12:23 AM
Obviously there is a need to get all Santas and Santa’s helpers vaccinated against the novel H1N1 flu as quickly as possible before the holiday season gets here since these individuals would be directly working and interacting with children of all ages. These children who look forward to seeing Santa before Christmas may either already have the flu or never been exposed to H1N1 before. Regardless of which situation may hold true, both scenarios could obviously end in disaster if Santa catches the H1N1 flu from an infected child or passes this illness on to hundreds or thousands of other children visiting with him, likely before his symptoms are even apparent. The lives of many children could be at stake if department store employees playing Santa this season are not properly vaccinated beforehand. I think this necessity is just as great as that of vaccinating health care personnel, school teachers, and early childhood care providers. The disease has already shown that it can spread itself quickly and successfully within a small amount of time if given the right circumstances (exposure to a great crowd of people), and so an unimmunized Santa could be the ticket to a free ride that billions of viral particles are only too desperate to undertake.
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