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Two New York real estate moguls are accused of arranging hasty COVID-19 vaccinations for their contacts at a Florida country club, Page Six reported.
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The paper’s sources accused brothers Bill and David S. Mack of making a list of contacts who could get the vaccine at a Florida nursing home.
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A spokesperson for the Macks told Page Six they had been asked by the nursing home to help with vaccination organization, but denied that there was a “targeted effort” to include country-club members in the drive.
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The vaccine rollout in Florida has been messy, with elderly people lining up and camping overnight outside vaccination sites in the state in late December.
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Insider has contacted representatives for the Macks, the Joseph L. Morse Health Center, and the Palm Beach Country Club for comment.
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Two New York real-estate moguls are accused of hooking up their country-club friends with COVID-19 vaccinations at a Florida nursing home, as elderly people in the state are forced to line up overnight to try and get a shot.
Sources told Page Six that brothers Bill and David S. Mack appeared to arrange for their friends from the Palm Beach Country Club to be vaccinated.
One source told the paper: “David and Bill Mack arranged for their friends from the Palm Beach Country Club to be vaccinated for COVID-19. They apparently made a list of people who could get the vaccine, who one can only assume are their wealthy friends and clients.”
“Supposedly, some people flew down in private jets from New York just for the vaccine, if they were lucky enough to be on the list the brothers made. It wasn’t just members of the Palm Beach Country Club who got the vaccine, but there were many club members who did.”
Another source told Page Six that their friend received a vaccine shot two days earlier at the nursing home, saying that it had been arranged by the Palm Beach Country Club.
Page Six reported that the vaccine was given out at the Joseph L. Morse Health Center, a nonprofit nursing home in Palm Beach. According to Page Six, David Mack is its chairman.
Insider has contacted representatives for the Macks, the Joseph L. Morse Health Center, and the Palm Beach Country Club for comment.
A spokesperson for the Macks told Page Six that the brothers had been asked to help organize vaccinations in the state, but denied that there was a “targeted effort” to include members of the country club.
“Several not-for-profit health and senior care organizations in Florida are undertaking major vaccination efforts. David and Bill Mack were asked to assist a not-for-profit healthcare institution with the organization of its vaccination campaign,” the spokesperson said.
“Some vaccine recipients may have been Palm Beach Country Club members, but substantially fewer than your sources indicated, and this was not a targeted effort to vaccinate club members.”
The representative confirmed to Page Six that the not-for-profit group mentioned was the Joseph L. Morse Health Center.
But they would not confirm the allegations that the Macks made a list of wealthy people that could be vaccinated, or say if anyone flew into Florida to get the vaccine.
Page Six noted, however, that there were no indications that the Joseph L. Morse Health Center had failed to vaccinate its own population or that other people were turned away for vaccinations because of the Macks’ supposed list of contacts.
Florida’s vaccination rollout has been messy.
At the end of December, hundreds of people ages 65 and older lined up outside vaccination sites in the state.
As Insider’s Kelly McLaughlin previously reported, some people faced temperatures as low as 47 degrees Fahrenheit while camping out overnight. And most sites hit capacity before 7 a.m. on multiple days – two hours before they opened.
Page Six’s sources said the people the Macks supposedly arranged to get vaccinated were not residents of the nursing home.
The spokesperson for the Macks said that the vaccinations they were involved in complied with the order given by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, “as it relates to persons 65 and older.”
DeSantis signed an order in December that said the state’s 4 million residents aged over 65 would be next in line to get the vaccine.
Sites like care homes are being used to administer vaccines in the state, as well as hospitals.
Public-health experts also worry that the vaccine rollout will become more chaotic as it continues.
According to the local news outlet WRCB-TV, health officials in Tennessee turned away elderly people who had waited hours to get a COVID-19 vaccine and gave it to their friends and family members instead.
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