Seniors 65 and Over on Tail End of H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccination Priority List

Seniors 65 and over are on the tail end of the H1N1 swine flu vaccination priority list according to a vote taken today by a government appointed panel of experts.

The advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have compiled a list of groups who should be among the first to get the H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available.

Those groups include pregnant women, parents and caretakers of young children, all health care workers, people between the ages of 6 months and 24 years and non-elderly adults with underlying medical conditions.

Should the new vaccine be unexpectedly restricted, the committee recommends an even smaller group to receive priority for the vaccination. This smaller group includes pregnant women, household contacts of children under the age of 6, only health care workers with direct exposure to infected patients or to the virus, children between 6 months and 4 years of age and those ages 5 to 18 with underlying factors.

After the priority groups listed, healthy people through the ages of 25 and 64 would be next in line for the vaccine.

Seniors over 65 are at the tail end of the H1N1 swine flu vaccination priority list because the committee says based on the science of the pandemic so far there have been far fewer cases of swine flu in this elderly group.

Queens Middle School Principal Succumbs to Swine Flu

Mitchell Wiener, a Queens Middle School principal, succumbed to swine flu Sunday night and became the city’s first swine flu death.

The 55 year old, beloved assistant principal of Intermediate School 238 in Hollis, died at 6:17 at Flushing Hospital Medical Center. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned the nation to brace for more deaths from the H1N1 virus.

Wiener was treated with an experimental device Friday night and Saturday according to Tom Petrie of Engergex Systems that created a Hemo-Modulator that uses UV beams to treat the flu. The device exposes infected blood to a precise amount of ultraviolet rays, rendering the pathogens inactive.

Mitchell Wiener is the sixth person in the United States to succumb to the swine flu. The Weiner family said his only previous ailment had been gout.

Swine Flu Reduces Graduation Hand Shaking

This month, several colleges and high schools are holding graduations all across the country. Students will line up and wait to hear their names called to receive their diplomas. They will walk across the stage but they will not find a hand outstretched to greet them. No, swine flu (H1N1) has changed all of that.

Instead they will pose for a picture with the President or Principal without the usual handshake, thus reducing the chance that the virus is spread. Imagine having to shake a couple hundred, or even a couple thousand hands during a ceremony. Even if you weren’t sick, what are the chances that one of the hands you touched had the virus and you were inadvertently passing to every hand you shook from that point on. So several schools have made the decision to forgo the customary handshake for this year.

Well of course this makes sense. If this continues, how then will we “seal the deal” in business? If the saying is “A man’s handshake is his word,” will the new word be “contamination?”