London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Rich And Powerful Attempt To Jump Covid Vaccine Queues

Rich And Powerful Attempt To Jump Covid Vaccine Queues

A former prime minister of Poland has received a Covid-19 vaccination ahead of healthcare workers just as other rich and powerful individuals attempt to buy their way to the front of the vaccine queue.

Leszek Miller, who was prime minister of Poland between 2001 and 2004 and serves as a Member of European Parliament (MEP), tweeted a photo confirming he had received a vaccination against Covid-19.

Outrage followed: Why was Miller being vaccinated ahead of healthcare workers, people asked. Covid-19 vaccines in Poland are currently only available to frontline healthcare workers, their family and parents of new-borns. Miller is neither of these.

Yet Miller's certificate from Comirnaty, the European Medicines Agency, confirms his inoculation: "You just received a mRNA vaccine against Covid-19," the certificate reads in Polish.


Speaking to Polish media, Miller said he received the vaccine because he was a long-term patient of the Medical Center of the Medical University of Warsaw, which conducted "out-of-sequence" vaccinations.

Krystyna Janda, a Polish actress, also gloated on Facebook about her Covid-19 jab from the Medical Center of the Medical University of Warsaw, which confirmed in a statement that it had vaccinated several actors, composers and directors "who will promote the idea of ​​vaccination against Covid-19 in Poland."

Adam Niedzielski, Poland's health minister, has accused the Medical Center of "a deliberate breach of the rules."

But despite the outrage, Miller and Janda are now the envy of wealthy individuals around the world who will pay anything to jump the vaccine queue in their own countries.


Krystyna Janda, a Polish actress who received an early Covid-19 vaccination.


"'Money is not a problem,'" is what clients tell Sabine Donnai when they call asking for a Covid-19 vaccination. "The question comes every hour," she says.

Donnai founded Viavi, a private health clinic in London, which, like every other private healthcare service in the U.K., is unable to provide Covid-19 vaccinations since they are being administered only by the National Health Service (NHS). "Unless [a vaccine] becomes available privately it's going to become really really difficult for the wealthy to get hold of it despite them offering a hell of a lot of money for it," she says.

But this has not stopped them from trying. Klnik, a private health clinic in Northern England, has reportedly received offers of £2,000 ($2,690) for a single Covid-19 jab. Like Viavi, however, it is unable to comply no matter how big the offer.

Exclusive health concierge or membership firms have reported similar requests. Priyanka Chaturvedi, CEO of Health Clic in London's Mayfair, says "probably all" of her clients have asked about getting a Covid-19 jab.

Members of Lanserhof, a health clinic housed in London's private members Art's Club, have been asking the same question. But all such requests are met with the same answer: Covid-19 vaccines are only available through the U.K.'s NHS.


Tracy Anderson and Gwyneth Paltrow host a Goop event at the Lanserhof at The Arts Club in 2019.


It's no easier in Switzerland, which runs a thriving business providing private healthcare to the world's wealthy. Like in the U.K., vaccines in Switzerland are only available through the country's national healthcare service. And yet celebrities and millionaires from around the world are still ringing up and asking about getting a jab, says Marta Ra who runs Paracelsus Recovery.

But even Switzerland does not want a situation "where some rich people can get [a vaccine] just because they can pay ten times more than it actually costs," says Ra.

The Rich Miss Out On Covid Vaccinations


The problem with the global wealthy, or jet set, is they live such international lives, and are so used to private healthcare, that they are not registered with any national healthcare provider, be it in Switzerland or the U.K. or anywhere else.

"Most of them that are U.K. based are not registered with the NHS. So even if they were over 80 or vulnerable, because they've never registered with the NHS they would not be vaccinated," says Donnai.

This is why many wealthy individuals are bombarding private clinics with requests for a Covid-19 jab. That, and a lot of them are used to getting anything they want.

"We normally make anything happen that we can make happen. If they want to be seen by a consultant in Australia, we can fly the consultant over if that's what they want," says Donnai.

But what they don't want is to stand in a vaccine queue with others, says Ra. "They don't want to expose themselves to the other people standing in line or the person who is administering [the vaccine].

"It's about secrecy and discretion and also the feeling of exclusivity. They don't want to go where everyone else goes. They want to have special treatment because this is their normal standard."


A billionaire's worst nightmare: A vaccination queue in a supermarket car park.


Could There Be A Covid Vaccine Tourism?


When the U.K. became the first country to green-light a Covid-19 vaccine, Chaturvedi says she had "a few people contact us about that who were from abroad."

These people hoped they could come to the U.K., buy a vaccine, and then return home again. But they were immediately disappointed when Chaturvedi explained "that is not how the NHS works." The NHS does not sell Covid-19 vaccinations.

However, the idea of Covid-19 vaccine tourism is growing. Wherever a vaccination is first sold to the private healthcare sector, there will be a rush of enquiries from the world's wealthy.

Private healthcare centers are already trying to get hold of doses. Lanserhof says "it is definitely something we are looking to provide." Donnai expects the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to become available to the private sector in the U.K. by April.

In India, it might be March, according to the Serum Institute which is manufacturing the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

Only then can the wealthy legitimately jump the Covid-19 vaccination queue. And they will likely pay any price.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×