The Calgary Flames Hate Babies

So the Flames players and their families got the H1N1 flu shot vaccine as per both on the Edmonton Journal and TSN websites. Well that seems reasonable since hockey players must be in the high risk category otherwise it would have just been ridiculously selfish to jump the queue.

But wait a minute, I just looked on the Public Health Agency of Canada website and that might not be the case. According to them the sequencing for the vaccine is:

• People under 65 with chronic health condition
• Pregnant women
• Children 6 months to less than 5 years of age
• People living in remote and isolated settings or communities
• Health care workers involved in pandemic response or the delivery of essential health care services
• Household contacts and care providers of persons at high risk who cannot be immunized or may not respond to vaccines
• Populations otherwise identified as high risk

So unless I’m wrong the Flames aren’t in the high risk group after all. But I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything though. Here are Flames President Ken King’s comments courtesy of TSN.

Players are at a high risk of spreading the virus “due to the fact that they have frequent physical contact, onerous domestic and cross-border travel, extreme exertion and, frankly, are in very close contact with other teams,” he said Tuesday.

Okay that doesn’t make much sense to me. I work in a building with hundreds of other people that I’m in close contact with everyday that doesn’t move me to the front of the line. Travel is a lame excuse simple as that. And as far as exertion goes, these are extremely physically fit people so although I’m not a doctor I can’t see how exertion would make them more susceptible.

There must be more.

We went at a time that hundreds of thousands of other Albertans of all risk profiles were getting it, and thought we were within scope.

So the excuse is other people were doing it too? If your friend jump off a bridge would you jump too? The vaccines were taken on the advice of doctors, supposedly. If the Flames team doctor is telling low risk people to get a shot then they are not a good doctor.

I’m not here to say that H1N1 is or isn’t deadly or that you should or shouldn’t get the vaccine. What I can say for sure is that Flames players didn’t need the shot based on the protocol outlined by the Government of Canada and Alberta Health. Jumping the queue was irresponsible and the only logical conclusion I can draw is that the Flames hate babies.