Wealthy Californians hope to skip the line and gain early access to a coronavirus vaccine by offering to make significant donations to hospitals and charities.
Exclusive doctor’s offices have revealed that they receive hundreds of calls from their clients hoping their status and wealth will get them a place at the top of the list.
According to physician Jeff Toll, one of his clients even offered to make a five-figure donation to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, one of the first hospitals in the state to receive vaccines where he also has access rights.
“If I donate $ 25,000 to Cedars, would that help me get in line?” asked the customer.
Wealthy Californians hope to gain early access to a coronavirus vaccine by offering to donate to hospitals. In the photo a care provider is given a vaccine
It comes as the state broke another record for new daily cases on Friday – 53,326 –
“We get hundreds of calls every day,” Ehsan Ali, who runs the Beverly Hills Concierge Doctor, told The Los Angeles Times.
He charges between $ 2,000 and $ 10,000 a year for personal care and counts Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber among his clients.
“This is the first time that I have not been able to get anything for my patients,” he added.
Yet doctors are all forced to say ‘no’ despite the harassment, as the state has strict restrictions on who receives the first batches of its vaccine.
California will offer the vaccine first to health professionals and nursing home residents, then to essential workers and those with chronic health conditions, before it will be offered to the public more generally.
Gavin Newsom has stated that health officials “will be very aggressive in ensuring that those with resources, those with influence, crowd out those who deserve the vaccines the most.”
‘To those who think they can lead the way, and those who think because they have the resources, or they have relationships that allow them to do it. We’ll be monitoring that very, very closely, ”Newsom added.
“We will prioritize, and we will expect everyone in the health care delivery system to be held to the same ethical standard to really prioritize those who are most in need. And the real heroes in this pandemic are frontline health workers, and those are the people we need to protect, and we need to prioritize moving forward. ‘
But despite health officials’ insistence that these criteria will be enforced across the board, it hasn’t stopped the wealthy from trying.
Requests were particularly high in Southern California, which is currently the epicenter of the state outbreak.
“They wanted it yesterday,” said Dr. David Nazarian of My Concierge MD in Beverly Hills. “We will obey the rules, but are committed to securing and distributing the vaccine when it is available to us.”
Dr. Abe Malkin, founder of Concierge MD LA, has also received many phone calls offering to make donations in exchange for a vaccine dose.
“I would say 5 to 10 percent of them were willing to contribute to a charity in order to get themselves in line,” Malkin said.
Many clients have put themselves on waiting lists at the expensive clinics to get a dose of the vaccine as soon as possible.
Gavin Newsom, in the photo, has stated that health officials will be “ very aggressive in ensuring that those with resources, those with influence, don’t crowd out those who deserve the vaccines the most, ” as wealthy Californians make efforts to line the line
These boutique practices also take advantage of the expensive ultra-low-temperature freezers needed to store the Pfizer vaccines while they register to administer the vaccine, so they can get them to wealthy customers as quickly as possible.
Currently, only the US government can distribute the vaccines, as Pfizer and Moderna have not yet made them available for purchase by doctors or individuals.
The actions of the wealthy in California follow a global trend with most of the world’s vaccine doses obtained by the wealthiest countries.
According to a report by Oxfam and other human rights organizations, wealthy countries, representing only 14 percent of the world’s population, have used their resources and influence to capture 96 percent of Pfizer’s vaccine and 100 percent of Moderna’s.
However, Alison Bateman-House, an assistant professor of medical ethics at NYU, claimed that the West Coast elite might not all be looking for an early vaccine for selfish reasons.
“Every system has a weak link somewhere, and I’m sure someone will find it and someone will exploit it,” Bateman-House said. “The question is, where will that weak link be and how quickly will it be identified and stopped?”
The California death toll on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays – 295, 394, 288 and 265 – were the four deadliest days the state has seen, as pictured above
California received its first 327,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine this week, delivering the first shots to primary care health workers fighting the virus.
“I think one of the hard things is that doctors who care for these powerful people can say, no, you have to wait,” admitted Toll. “These people usually don’t have to wait.”
California broke another record for daily coronavirus cases on Friday with 53,326 reported in one day.
The state has now registered an average of more than 40,000 new coronavirus cases per day in the past week, ten times as many as at the end of October.
It’s because the deaths in the state are also reaching record highs.
In the past week, California registered seven percent of the total fatalities since the start of the pandemic, with more than 1,500 residents lost to the virus.
The Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday death tolls – 295, 394, 288 and 265 – were the four deadliest days the state has seen.
Hospitalizations have also broken a record 20 days in a row, with 16,019 on Thursday, including 3,447 people in intensive care units.
Nationally, there have been more than 17.4 million cases and 313,669 deaths.
