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Christmas Cheer Politics

The U.S. Health Department Tried to Offer Early Vaccines to Shopping Mall Santas (wsj.com) 92

Posted by EditorDavid from the ho-ho-ho dept.
America's national health agency "halted a public-service coronavirus advertising campaign funded by $250 million in taxpayer money after it offered a special vaccine deal to an unusual set of essential workers: Santa Claus performers."

The Wall Street Journal reports: As part of the plan, a top Trump administration official wanted the Santa performers to promote the benefits of a Covid-19 vaccination and, in exchange, offered them early vaccine access ahead of the general public, according to audio recordings. Those who perform as Mrs. Claus and elves also would have been included....

The decision comes as the Covid-19 spread continues to accelerate in most states, and the vaccines are unlikely to be broadly available to the public before the holiday season. The coronavirus ad effort — titled "Covid 19 Public Health and Reopening America Public Service Announcements and Advertising Campaign" — was intended to "defeat despair, inspire hope and achieve national recovery," according to a work statement reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It was to include television, radio, online and podcast announcements, starting immediately. The public-relations blitz began to fizzle after some celebrities, including actor Dennis Quaid, shied away from participating, a former White House official said, amid concerns that the campaign would be viewed as political rather than aiding public health....

[Former pharmaceutical lobbyist Alex Azar, now serving as America's Secretary of Health], has "ordered a strategic review of this public health education campaign that will be led by top public health and communications experts to determine whether the campaign serves important public health purposes," Health and Human Services officials said in a statement.
Santa's vaccines were the brainchild of Michael Caputo, a political strategist/lobbyist also appointed to America's Health and Human Services as assistant secretary, according to the Journal. But an HHS spokesman now tells them that the Santa "collaboration will not be happening."

They also get a quote from Ric Erwin, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas — who called the news "extremely disappointing." In a 12-minute phone call in late August, Mr. Caputo told Mr. Erwin of the Santa group that vaccines would likely be approved by mid-November and distributed to front-line workers before Thanksgiving.

"If you and your colleagues are not essential workers, I don't know what is," Mr. Caputo said on the call, which was recorded by Mr. Erwin and provided to the Journal. [In audio of the call published by the Journal, Santa responds by saying "Ho ho ho ho, ho ho ho. I love you."]

"I cannot wait to tell the president," Mr. Caputo said at another point about the plan. "He's going to love this." Mr. Erwin said on the call: "Since you would be doing Santa a serious favor, Santa would definitely reciprocate."

Mr. Caputo said: "I'm in, Santa, if you're in...."

Mr. Caputo said he wanted Santas to appear at rollout events in as many as 35 cities. In exchange, he said the Santas would get an early crack at inoculation.
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The U.S. Health Department Tried to Offer Early Vaccines to Shopping Mall Santas More

The U.S. Health Department Tried to Offer Early Vaccines to Shopping Mall Santas

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  • And...? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Sunday October 25, 2020 @12:36PM (#60646716)
    Is this meant to make anyone look bad or stupid? Because it sounds like an OK idea if the vaccines were a few weeks or months ahead of when they're actually going to get approved.

    • Yeah lets involve children in this crackpot trial.

      • Re: And...? (Score:1, Insightful)

        by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 )
        Dear boy, do you think vaccinated mall santas are better than unvaccinated mall santas? Because realistically, those are your two options.

        • Re: And...? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday October 25, 2020 @01:14PM (#60646874)

          Because realistically, those are your two options.

          No, those are not the two options. The third option is to not have any Santas but instead give the vaccine to medical workers, the very people trying to save everyone else's lives and are dying in the process.

          There's a reason people in the medical field are considered essential employees whereas Santa is not.

          • If you're not prepared to enforce your "no santa" policy, and all that that entails, don't assume you can wave your hand and all the santas will bow down and obey your royal decree.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by chill ( 34294 )

              All? No. But the biggest and most historical locations, yes [nydailynews.com].

              • Which is probably a net plus. But having them all vaccinated first and conspicuously so wouldn't have been a bad idea if the vaccine work were a month or two ahead of where it is now either.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by chill ( 34294 )

                  If we had a vaccine that wasn't pushed by and the process interfered with by politicians, and the majority had trust in, this would've been a great idea.

                  At this point I'm probably going to wait to see what is approved by Germany or Canada before getting a vaccine. I'm not interested in being a guinea pig so a politician can claim credit for speed.

            • Do we expect some of them to listen to dangerous advice? Yes. Do we expect people to go out and shop at all after a few people drop? No, and you shouldn't either.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dstwins ( 167742 )

            Also medical personnel are better equipped to detect physiological changes and are already working in an area that if something goes wrong, they can get treatment far quicker than anyone else.

            But they are also the group that is most likely to tell if something is fake/fishy or not.. (and in this administration, its better to assume everything said is a lie until its been verified by at least 3 outside sources unrelated (financially, socially, politically from this administration)

          • Nice thought, but most medical workers will likely not take this round of vaccines until better tested. The idea of lobbyist in charge of testing is not going to sit well with anybody of intelligence.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by physicsphairy ( 720718 )

            Given that we are talking about a general vaccine rollout (300 million people) there will obviously be more than enough vaccine to supply both (relatively small) groups - or we wouldn't be talking about a general rollout.

            So not really sure where this idea that every vaccination given to a mall santa is one less for a medical worker has come from.

            The purpose here (as evidenced by the fact it falls under Public Service Announcements and Advertising Campaign) is to spin up some good PR for the vaccine. In the

        • Dear boy

          Never begin your sentences that way; your NAMBLA affiliation is your own business.

          • If the word "truck stop" conjures up in your head things besides a restaurant, gas station, and parking lot...that says as much about you as it does about the guy who brought it up.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Thud457 ( 234763 )
          What if Santa gets the 'rona and gives it to everyone all in one night?!11!

          Is that a risk you are willing to take?


          GIS for "Santa positive pressure suit" currently returns nothing, get to work people. Until then you'll just have to imagine the department store Santa from the movie "Brazil".

    • Re:And...? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Xenographic ( 557057 ) on Sunday October 25, 2020 @12:39PM (#60646734) Journal

      I don't get it either. This is a group of people who will interact closely with lots of children, who are known to be good at spreading other viruses.

      Why shouldn't they be considered a higher-risk group of becoming super-spreaders and therefore a target for vaccination?

      I mean, it'd probably make more sense to just forgo the mall Santa thing entirely, but as long as they still exist, they probably should get vaccinated if at all possible.

      • But mall Santa's are essential workers apparently.... Lol

        • I'd give you the funny mod if I ever had a mod point to give.

          I think we're dealing with madmen here. Cue the latest insane announcement from the White House. Now the GOT has decided we might as well surrender to Covid-19. Hey! We won't see the mess until AFTER the election, and that's all that matters now!

          By the way, my new fear-of-the-day is that we are entering the cold season. Double entendre intended. As the common cold spreads through a population with Covid-19, we're going to have huge numbers of doub

          • Trump isn't a racist he is a bigot. Anyone who doesn't have wealth is a loser. Died in military service loser, died poor loser, can't afford healthcare loser, female a loser unless you have proven yourself loyal to him.

            Trump is a narcist through and through. Everything is about him. This is a great idea but the actors didn't want it to be Trump saves santa and so walked away. Now it makes Trump look bad so it is a loser idea.

            Look at the timing of all these deals with isreal. I bet they all suddenly fal

            • Trump is, in a way, the most American president ever - he is quite close to how other countries view America. Your description just reinforces this.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by shanen ( 462549 )

              I'm not denying Trump is a bigot, but I insist he's a racist, too. Haven't you heard any of his "good genes" stuff? And in either case the motivation is hatred. I'm not even certain he hates all the groups his supporters hate, but in that case what counts is that the haters think Trump agrees with and supports their hatreds.

              On the deals with Israel, I think the scam is simple. The real plan is Netanyahu's. He want's to expel ALL of the Palestinians. Most likely to Iran and even more likely that Netanyahu wa

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        How about teachers? FFS.

      • You know who else interacts with lots of children and is of much greater importance than a mall Santa? Hospital and healthcare workers! This is all part of Trump's family values commercials I keep seeing. You know Mr. grab 'em by the pussy on his now third wife set of values.

        • Right, because the best way to get out the word to vaccinate, and to deliver it, is to either take health workers away from their patients or have the entire population show up and clog the hospitals and hang around the sick people.

      • make more sense to just forgo the mall Santa thing entirely

        BINGO!

        That other bit where you assume that "as long as they still exist"... that is NOT A GIVEN.
        And I'm not talking about the fact that Santa, much like the Easter Bunny or non-racist Republicans - isn't actually real.

        People dressing in costumes in order to exploit children to boost consumerism by money-shaming said children's parents... those are not essential workers.
        E.g. Simply inoculating cashiers instead would be far more essential AND effective.
        But one don't get to pretend that they're saving Christma

        • As I was saying before some pathetic snowflake who never heard of copy and paste tried to downmod the reality...

          make more sense to just forgo the mall Santa thing entirely

          BINGO!

          That other bit where you assume that "as long as they still exist"... that is NOT A GIVEN.
          And I'm not talking about the fact that Santa, much like the Easter Bunny or non-racist Republicans - isn't actually real.

          People dressing in costumes in order to exploit children to boost consumerism by money-shaming said children's parents... those are not essential workers.
          E.g. Simply inoculating cash

      • I mean, it'd probably make more sense to just forgo the mall Santa thing entirely, but as long as they still exist, they probably should get vaccinated if at all possible.

        The B&M retail industry seemed to be in rough shape before Covid-19. Might not be many malls left for mall Santas anyway.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      It's a matter of context. Where does Santa vaccination stand on our list of priorities?

      Supposing we had through a robust system of contact tracing and follow up knocked the epidemic leading indicators down into a low area, where they remain stable. Life, while not normal yet, would be a lot closer to normal and you might think that congregating children at retail store Christmas events poses an acceptable risk. Then vaccinating Santa actors would be a prudent and reasonable thing to consider.

      If your numb

      • Europe supposedly did everything right. They still got it bad. Australia supposedly did everything right. They have to lock down to the point where babies are dying because they aren't allowed to cross state lines for emergency surgeries. New Zealand supposedly did everything right. They might have just gotten lucky to arrest it early, but even still they haven't eradicated it. Get real. There was probably nothing that could have been done. And maybe if the press weren't injecting antiTrump venom into their

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          We are the most advanced country in the world, who should have been far better prepared, and we have worse infection rates than anywhere because THERE WAS NO COORDINATED RESPONSE. Now that our utter failure to take BASIC precautions is now pushing us into the third wave of infections, you simply cannot rewrite history and say "well this was unavoidable." Plenty of smart people were telling you exactly how to avoid it, you refused to listen, and now we are all paying the price. Your willful ignorance is asto
          • Plenty of smart people were telling usnin March that masks are theater and may encourage dangerous crowding by people who think they are protected. Many of those same people then proceeded to shame and condemn people for purchasing masks. Now they're using the exact same amount of venom and vitriol to demand that people wear masks.

            They also apply that same venom to anyone suggesting Chinese coverups had more to do with seeding the virus everywhere before we knew it was a thing than anything we might have d

          • "We are the most advanced country in the world"

            As the evidence makes clear, we are not.
            If we are the most advanced, that's not saying much about the other countries.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          The recent crisis situation in New Zealand amounts to around 14 new cases per million population per week. The US is reporting *hundreds* of new cases per million population per *day*. Scaled to their population, their new case rate is literally a thousand times better than ours.

          Australia is also treating numbers that are wildly better than ours as a serious emergency. They've reported just over a thousand cases for the past week *for the entire country of 26 million*.

          As for Europe, it depends on the cou

        • "Europe supposedly did everything right. They still got it bad."

          Umm no they didn't. Germany, Portugal, France, and Spain, and even Italy did great. Spain & France messed up early on just like us, but then right sided up. Italy got it before people knew what it was and it's amazing they could catch up and close it down. All those places have had targeted isolations/lockdowns with test results in the 1-2 day range and on premise schools open.

          "Australia supposedly did everything right."

          No they didn't. The

          • Well, to be fair, some of the German federal states had test results delayed one time, but even so I've got my result after exactly 48 hours, on a Saturday no less.

          • France is going to be shutting down their Disney world in short order. They had 60% of our cases for 20% of our population this past weekend. Are they a 3rd world country too?

      • It's a matter of context. Where does Santa vaccination stand on our list of priorities?

        We cannot allow a vaccinated Santa gap!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Nonsense, it was a transparent attempt by the alleged administration to get people back to shopping regardless of the risks. They've never been able to calculate beyond the first degree effects of: Duh, I want this. Convincing people to take themselves and their youngins into a cesspool of SARS-CoV-2 never bothered them in the least. You, dear reader, are expendable for their re-election.

    • We've known for a long time that a vaccine would not be coming this early, and this discussion took place in August. So this could be another example of the administration burying their heads in the sand.

      On the other hand, having a plan for an implausibly optimistic scenario is not nearly as bad as announcing it [cnbc.com]. This is small potatoes on the scale of fuckups that we've had to suffer through.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rakhar ( 2731433 )

      So I guess all the safety timelines for vacine trials were just in place for show all this time. I'm sure I'll feel much better about mass rollout of a hastily tested vaccine because of this. Surely nothing bad has ever happened because of pushing an ill-tested vaccine on the public...

      Oh wait, it has. Hurray longterm negative side effects. I said back in March that this would happen. Anything to get a vaccine out before the election, 18 month testing be damned. And of course we're supposed to be greatfu

  • Truth or The Onion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday October 25, 2020 @12:37PM (#60646722)

    Things are getting pretty bad when you can't tell the real administration from satire.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Trump is walking satire.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Being a scared little boy and being an idiot are not mutually exclusive. He absolutely is an idiot. A smart man as psychopathic as he is would have made the last four years so incredibly much worse. It's unlikely our democracy would survive another four years of Trump, but a smarter psychopath would have been able to destroy it in the first four.

          We've gotten a wake up call. The power of the presidency MUST be reduced, permanently.

    • This onion article was published before Trump announced his cure ideas.

      https://local.theonion.com/man... [theonion.com]

      "Man Just Buying One Of Every Cleaning Product In Case Trump Announces It’s Coronavirus Cure"

      Throwing bottles of bleach, ammonia, and Drano into a cart at his local grocery store, area man Troy Mitchell was reportedly stocking up on one of every cleaning product he could find Wednesday in case President Donald Trump announces it is a coronavirus cure. “I got toilet bowl cleaner, carpet cleaner

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      Things are getting pretty bad when you can't tell the real administration from satire.

      It's not the administration, it's the democrats. Here are some of their ideas:
      1) Eliminate the police.
      2) Eliminate prisons.
      3) Set cities on fire whenever a career violent black criminal manages to get shot by police. Then lie like hell about it. They make sure that they don't tell the circumstances and make it appear they're innocent as the driven snow. Just a crazy policeman shot them out of the blue for no reason.
      4) Terrorize citizens with people that claim to be for black lives and do nothing to help bla

  • What?!? (Score:3)

    by I75BJC ( 4590021 ) on Sunday October 25, 2020 @12:42PM (#60646760)
    How is the Mall Santa Claus an essential worker but Not..
    Places of worship?
    Bars?
    AA meetings and other Recovery/12 Step meetings? Weddings? Religious functions and gatherings? Gun stores and shooting ranges?
    Garden centers and nurseries?
    Hospitals offering elective surgery?
    Gyms and fitness clubs?
    Grocery stores, pharmacies?
    Car stores?
    Everything else?

    Some people appear to be Stark-Raving-Mad!
    And it isn't most of us!

    • Perhaps it's intended as a defense against the war on Christmas [wikipedia.org].

    • Places of worship are all scams and not essential.

      But you do have a point - Santa Claus and God are one and the same.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nkwe ( 604125 )

        But you do have a point - Santa Claus and God are one and the same.

        They are not the same. I have personally only seen tangible evidence that one exists. As a kid on Christmas morning, there were packages from Santa under the tree. They other guy - not so much.

        • From what we hear, he's not nearly as nice as Santa.

          And if you're bad, a lump of coal in your stocking hardly compares to an eternity of torment.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

        Places of worship are all scams and not essential.

        But you do have a point - Santa Claus and God are one and the same.

        Nice try, you bought the lie. It's not a scam if it works.

        https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/n... [harvard.edu]

        So definitively it shows that there is a place for religion. Turns out any religion other than Islam. Islam's goal is to kill anyone that isn't a muslim and it's ok to lie about it. They tried to bury that study because the left hates it.

    • but this isn't about essential workers, this is about public image. The idea is Mall Santas are highly visible. About 30% of the population is anti-vax, and COVID-19 immunity seems to only last about 4 months. So the only way a vaccine can work is if a very, very high percentage get it. The idea here is to show the vaccine is safe. It's a PR campaign.

      There's nothing wrong with that... if the vaccine is well tested, verified to work and safe. Thing is, that's not going to happen this year, which makes ta

  • All he has to say is that professionals will offer trial vaccines outside of every Macy's & Walmart on Thanksgiving week and his supporters should get them.

    And boom, a good chunk of the US will get vaccinated in one weekend. As long as there is no mention of Republicans or Trump, it can be funded by taxpayers. You can probably even say "Supported by the President." in huge banners.

    But Trump probably responded with "Why should that guy get my credit!" Or maybe his staff is afraid he will go off script a

  • I couldn't tell if that was a Ha, ha, ha, ha with a sarcastic "I love you" or a Ho, ho, ho, ho and a "Bro, I really love you!"

  • "Rudolph the red armed reindeer...

  • Mr. Caputo said he wanted Santas to appear at rollout events in as many as 35 cities. In exchange, he said the Santas would get an early crack at inoculation.

    His major mistake was wanting to start this off in Tuskegee [wikipedia.org] ...

  • Malls or their included stores are closing all over the country. And, what parent would put their kid on a Santa's lap during this pandemic? I suppose there are some folks who still believe the pandemic is is fake hoax.
  • Now trump wants to kill Santa in front of kids.
  • This was planning for an ad campaign that would have been released if we had an approved vaccine by December, something still possible.
    So after all the anti-science talk by biden, and various state governors you need some way to educate people on the vaccine. You do santa and the workers and have them in malls, when people show up, which they will, you give them a sheet on the vaccine availability while the kids get pictures of themselves with santa.
    In addition, the vaccinated people are out in the open
  • ...claims another victim. Thanks libs!

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