Covid-19: US pulls plan to give early vaccine to Santa Claus


The US has cancelled plans to offer Santa Claus performers early access to a coronavirus vaccine in exchange for their help in promoting it publicly.

Those who perform as Mrs Claus and elves would also have been eligible for the jabs.

The festive collaboration was part of a $250m (£192m) government campaign to garner celebrity endorsements of vaccinations once they are approved.

But health authorities confirmed the advertising campaign had been scrapped.

Ric Erwin, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, called the news "extremely disappointing."

"This was our greatest hope for Christmas 2020, and now it looks like it won't happen," he told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has since confirmed the existence of the Santa plan to the New York Times.


The idea was initially conceived by Michael Caputo, a former assistant secretary at the department. Mr Caputo announced last month that he would be going on leave, shortly after posting a video to Facebook where he accused government scientists of engaging in "sedition" against President Donald Trump.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Caputo told Mr Erwin in August that a vaccine would be approved by mid-November and distributed to frontline workers by Thanksgiving, which falls on the last Thursday of November.

"If you and your colleagues are not essential workers, I don't know what is," Mr Caputo can be heard saying in a phone call recording released by the Wall Street Journal. Mr Erwin responds: "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

He also said on the call: "Since you would be doing Santa a serious favour, Santa would definitely reciprocate."

An HHS spokesperson told the New York Times that Health Secretary Alex Azar "had no knowledge" of the now-cancelled plan.

But Mr Erwin told the Wall Street Journal that health agency officials had promised to finalise the plan by mid-September, and nearly 100 Santas had volunteered.

"They may have been fibbing a little bit to Santa," he said.



https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54686844 




 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Image
Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda. By   DARREN LINVILL   &   PATRICK WARREN Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t  “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,”  as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy. Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously. MORE: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/ P...
Read more

The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term

Image
The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term   (Photo: Photos: Getty Images) Americans will almost certainly go to bed on Nov. 3 without knowing who won the presidential election. Since millions of people will vote by mail, constraints on time and resources will slow ballot counting into potentially a weeks-long process. Voting patterns suggest it’s likely that President  Donald Trump  could end Election Day in the lead in certain key states, only to be overtaken by Democratic opponent  Joe Biden  when more votes are tallied.  This could create a nightmare scenario during the three months stretching from Election Day to the Jan. 20 inauguration: a battle on the state and congressional level over who is the legitimate winner. This could include Congress reconvening on Jan. 6, presided over by Vice President  Mike Pence , with no consensus over its potential role in choosing the next president. This...
Read more

When Life Hands You Lemons

Image
 It's like this folks: sometimes your mind goes blank. Happens more than usual with me of course. Take this forum for instance. I wanted to post something today and couldn't think of a topic. At least not a non-sexual one and we know sexual ones lately have been frowned upon.  Then along comes one of our regulars and complains about something. Well, they might not say it was a complaint, just an observation, but it was a complaint. A minor one. It has something to do about being able to make something out of nothing. Sort of like me this morning, how to make a thread out of an empty head? But they (notice I am using the correct pronoun, not saying he or she), by what they said got me thinking. What I thought was: Not sure if that is the actual saying, if I remember correctly, I remember the saying going something like this: Umm, no, I don't think the saying I am thinking of goes that way either, maybe ONE of you good folks can remind me how the saying goes. Either way, when...
Read more