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Stealing, bribing, VIP scheduling
Some people have set out to steal, bribe or manipulate their way to vaccine. Last month, Polk County, Florida s 2020 Paramedic of the Year was arrested and charged with stealing vaccines meant for first responders. The first responder confessed to stealing three doses and forging paperwork to try to cover his actions.
In Philadelphia, a 22-year-old student who got a contract from the city to run its vaccine distribution sign-up admitted he took four doses home and administered them to friends. The city announced last week that it would no longer work with his startup.
Several concierge doctors – who offer personalized medical services and direct access for an annual fee – reported clients or would-be clients offering bribes for vaccine.
Cutting, bribing, stealing: Some people get COVID-19 vaccines before it s their turn
Grace Hauck, USA TODAY
Bribing doctors. Circulating vaccination appointment codes. Chartering planes and impersonating essential workers.
More than a month since the USA began administering COVID-19 vaccines, many people who were not supposed to be first in line have received vaccinations. Anecdotal reports suggest people deliberately leveraged widespread vulnerabilities in the distribution process to acquire vaccine. Others were just in the right place at the right time. There s dozens and dozens of these stories, and they really show that the rollout was a complete disaster in terms of selling fairness, said Arthur Caplan, who heads the medical ethics division at the NYU School of Medicine. It wasn’t that we didn’t have consensus (on who should go first). We didn’t pay attention to logistics, and that drove distribution, not rules.
Black market starting to emerge amid coronavirus vaccine shortages [The Orange County Register]
Jan. 31 In Miami, priority access to COVID vaccines was dangled as a lure to big hospital donors.
In New York, hospital workers laboring from home cut in front of their frontline colleagues on the COVID-19 vaccine line.
In California, teachers at the wealthy Los Gatos Union School District were urged by their superintendent to masquerade as health care workers to get vaccines ahead of schedule.
Scarcity of vaccines amid a deadly global pandemic is fueling fears of a black market that could inflict great harm on public health and confidence, where potentially stolen, spoiled or fake vaccine is sold to those who can afford to pay while the real thing is in short supply in communities most heavily impacted by COVID, experts said.
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As many medical centers postponed elective procedures and routine examinations during the early days of the pandemic, there was one group of patients who mostly kept seeing their doctors as usual: those who are members of concierge practices.
Concierge medicine where patients pay what amounts to a retainer fee for direct access to a doctor or doctors has boomed during the pandemic. According to Kona Medical Consulting, which manages concierge practices, such doctors saw a 21% increase in new patient volumes nationally during 2020, adjusting for normal fluctuations.
“There was a marked increase for a number of reasons: People couldn’t get a hold of their own doctors, who were diverted to treating Covid patients. Tele-health is great, but it’s hard to get a Covid test that way,” says Thomas LaGrelius, a concierge doctor specializing in family and geriatric medicine in Torrance, Calif.