London private members club offering its members Covid-19 vaccinations abroad

Money, they say, cannot buy happiness. But it can get you a vaccine before your granny.

A private members club in London is offering its members the chance to skip the United Kingdom's priority list and receive the Covid-19 vaccination abroad. At present, the UK and Ireland are administering the vaccine to the most vulnerable in society, which includes groups such as those living and working in care homes, the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. However, if you have enough money you could get the vaccine by signing up to the £25,000-a-year Knightsbridge Circle, a members club in London. Speaking to The Telegraph without a hint of irony, the club's founder Stuart McNeil said: "We’ve been proactive in offering it to all of our existing members.'

"It’s like we’re the pioneers of this new luxury travel vaccine programme. You go for a few weeks to a villa in the sunshine, get your jabs and your certificate and you’re ready to go."

He added: "We’ve been vaccinating over the last couple of weeks in the UAE, using Pfizer and Sinopharm, which require a 21-day gap between shots. We can start administering the AstraZeneca vaccine today in India. "I am talking to doctors who are potentially going to set up clinics in Marrakech and have the AstraZeneca vaccine transferred from India to there - because India is difficult visa-wise for the UK." According to McNeil, his clients book trips to luxury locations, where the vaccine administration is arranged upon their arrival. They then receive the second dose at a later date, though some clients have spoken of travelling elsewhere between doses, despite the fact that they may well contract and/or spread the virus while doing so. He said: "We’ve got some people that are going to India for the whole time and others are talking about flying in, having the first jab, flying out to Madagascar, and then coming back for the second jab later." Despite, or perhaps because of, the inequality on show, the founder insisted that no one under the age of 65 had availed of the vaccine through his company's offer. "We still have a moral responsibility to make sure that people that really need it get it, and that’s what we’ve been focusing on. It’s not just been our members, but their parents and their grandparents as well," said McNeil.