News The rich scramble for COVID-19 vaccines

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They’re offering tens of thousands of dollars in cash, making their personal assistants pester doctors every day, and asking whether a five-figure donation to a hospital would help them jump the line.

The COVID-19 vaccine is here — and so are the wealthy people who want it first.

“We get hundreds of calls every single day,” said Dr. Ehsan Ali, who runs Beverly Hills Concierge Doctor. His clients, who include Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, pay between $2,000 and $10,000 a year for personalized care. “This is the first time where I have not been able to get something for my patients.”

Guidelines that prioritize people who work in essential industries, have underlying health conditions, or are older than 65 are massive gray areas. In California alone, nearly 12 million people — two-thirds of the state workforce — work in essential industries.

That ambiguity creates opportunities for the well-connected to argue that an underlying health condition or a C-suite level position at an essential company should push them toward the front of the line, said Glenn Ellis, a bioethicist and a visiting scholar at Tuskegee University.

“With enough money and influence, you can make a convincing argument about anything,” Ellis said. But unlike lobbying for a better table at a restaurant or a better seat at a Broadway show, he said, taking a vaccine dose that was meant for an essential worker could cost someone their health or their life.

Taryn Vian, a health sector anti-corruption expert who teaches at the University of San Francisco, said powerful people could gain early access to the vaccine not by using bribery or coercion, but through more subtle means, like making requests to similarly powerful friends.

A friend of the leader of a pharmaceutical company, medical distributor, hospital or nursing home could ask if there are any extra doses available, and the leader could ask their assistant to see if they could help. The assistant might then interpret the request as a demand to misappropriate a dose, Vian explained.

“V.I.P. treatment is very common” in the healthcare industry, Vian said.

The wealthy scramble for COVID-19 vaccines: 'If I donate $25,000 ... would that help me?'

Concierge doctors are stocking up with ultra-low-temperature freezers and are being inundated with calls from well-heeled clients looking for an edge in getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

www.latimes.com