BOSTON -- When it comes to Swine Flu, it’s truly getting crazy out there.

Not that H1N1 is anything to sneeze at. (Cover, please.) It’s real, it’s here, and genuine precautions are in order. But panic and hysteria are not.

Alas, that’s not stopping some people who ought to know better. Like ... Santa Claus.

National distribution of H1N1 vaccine through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has fallen far short of both need and expectations. From Seattle to Secaucus, state health agencies are trying to make do while making difficult choices when it comes to prioritizing who gets inoculated first.

Those considered most at-risk are:

pregnant women

people who live with or care for children younger than six months

children between six months and two years

adults and elderly with chronic health conditions or weakened immune systems

healthcare and emergency workers with direct patient contact

Please note that nowhere on that list are the following:

lawyers

financial analysts or advisers

Mall Santas

Or, maybe the keen legal minds at Ropes & Gray, a huge Boston-based law firm, saw a different list. Maybe on the one they read, it lists "lawyers" right between "children between six months and two years," and those with "chronic health conditions or weakened immune systems."

One wonders because the firm has made arrangements to stockpile the antiviral medicine Tamiflu, in order to help better protect its employees from Swine flu.

The move has provoked the ire of state and federal health officials, who say such stockpiling runs counter to official guidelines that call for the drug’s supplies to be reserved for those already infected or at risk of dangerous complications if they were to become infected.

The private stockpiling is all the more irksome because here in Massachusetts, less than one-third of the total flu vaccines the state needs have arrived, leaving the high-risk population that much more vulnerable.

Still, what’s the CDC going to do -- sue Ropes & Gray?

Good luck with that.

Maybe they’d have better luck going after Fidelity Investments.

Fidelity, one of Boston’s biggest employers, is not only stockpiling Tamiflu , but is offering its workers "just in case" prescriptions to go ahead and get it.

If only Fidelity had been nearly as prudent and forward-thinking a few years ago about the economy itself getting sick.

Then maybe they could have also protected more of their customers’ life savings. Not to mention some of the thousands of their own employees who have lost their jobs. On the plus side for Fidelity, that means now they don’t have to stockpile as much Tamiflu.

But let’s face it -- it’s no great shock when lawyers and bankers go bad.

But the Big Man in red? Say it ain’t so, Santa.

One of the biggest national organizations representing mall Santas is calling for the swine flu vaccine to be made available to these Santas on a priority basis. It is not clear whether they feel they should come before, after, or in between the bankers and the lawyers.

Not that one can’t understand their concern. Mall santas are sitting ducks when it comes to germs. They get slobbered, sneezed, drooled on and pawed at. And that’s just from the parents.

And this season more than ever, one can sympathize with Santa. But cutting in line before the sick, the aged, the young and the vulnerable? I think even a 6-year-old knows whether that’s naughty or nice.

Maybe the swine flu scofflaws could learn a lesson from Moldova. No, I can’t find it on a map, either. But I’m told it’s a tiny former Soviet republic bordering Romania and Ukraine.

Although its small army has already had 24 cases of swine flu, there is no stockpiling of Tamiflu. Instead, soldiers are being given extra rations of onions and garlic, which some believe help naturally boost the body’s immune system.

(Some folk legends maintain that garlic also helps ward off lawyers. Oops -- I mean vampires.)

So this holiday/flu season, let’s give those vaccine line-cutters all the onions and garlic they care to hoard and stock up on. Along with the lumps of coal they’ve already earned.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ted almost immediately received this response to this column:

Dear Ted:

The Santa Claus Foundation alerted Secretary of Health and Human Services Sebelius more than a month ago regarding our concern that Santas could become transfer points for the spread of H1N1 among children.

Outside of a school environment, Santas, collectively, have more contact with more children than anyone else. Evidently, you and Secretary Sebelius do not share our concern for the health of our nation's children.

Would you care for one lump or two this year? Santa Claus is my legal name and I'd rather give children the greatest gift of all -- love, not H1N1.

Blessings, Santa Claus :-)}