Wealthy Californians Offer Thousands to Skip COVID-19 Vaccine Line

Well-heeled Californians are offering doctors tens of thousands of dollars for a coronavirus vaccine – and that’s still not enough to get them on the list.

Other rich and famous tactics on the West Coast include having their personal assistants harass doctors on a daily basis and offer five-figure donations to hospitals, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

“We get hundreds of calls every day,” said Dr. Ehsan Ali, who runs the Beverly Hills Concierge Doctor and whose clients include Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

“This is the first time that I have failed to get something for my patients.”

Dr Jeff Toll, who runs a private concierge practice in Los Angeles – which charges up to $ 25,000 a year for top notch care – said “people are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars” .

Toll, who also has admitting privileges at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, recalled how one patient asked him, “If I give Cedars $ 25,000, would that help me stand in line?”

Another doctor with many Hollywood clients told The Times that celebrities and executives see “their people literally call me every day.”

“They don’t want to wait. They want to know how they can get it faster, ”the doctor said.

The Golden State has strict rules for determining who gets vaccinated first: healthcare workers and nursing home residents, then essential workers and those with chronic health conditions before anyone else.

But janitor doctors are already preparing to help their powerful patients get vaccinated as soon as possible, the Times reported.

They are compiling long patient charts with medical histories and potential COVID-19 risks and purchasing expensive, ultra-low-temperature freezers needed to keep the vax at minus 94 degrees, according to the report.

“As soon as we heard about the vaccine coming onto the market, we started looking for freezers,” said Andrew Olanow, co-founder of Sollis Health, a janitorial firm with clinics in New York City, Hamptons and Beverly Hills.

Well-connected people could take advantage of the vague guidelines and argue that an underlying condition or a prominent position in a critical business should push them to the top of the list, warned Glenn Ellis, bioethicist and visiting researcher at Tuskegee University.

“With enough money and influence, you can make a compelling argument about anything,” Ellis told The Times.

But Gov. Gavin Newsom – who made his own blunder by eating without a mask and indoors at Tony French Laundry restaurant – warned that California would be “very aggressive” to make the rich and powerful “not oust those”. who deserve it the most. vaccines.”

“Those who think they can get ahead and those who think because they have the resources or have the connections that will allow them to do so … we are also going to be watching this very, very closely,” Newsom said. .