MADISON, Wisconsin – Alex Lasry, a 33-year-old Milwaukee Bucks executive and son of a billionaire, received the coronavirus vaccine this week at a senior center in Milwaukee, despite not being part of a group currently eligible for vaccines in Wisconsin.
“I was vaccinated this week!” Lasry tweeted on Friday after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported. “My wife got a call from her uncle who works at a facility that had extra doses that would go to waste if they weren’t used immediately. With Lauren early in her pregnancy, we wanted to secure our home, and the whole community is safe for everyone. . “
Lasry, a New York native who is a hedge fund manager, is considering running for the US Senate in Wisconsin in 2022. He was also chairman of the 2020 Democratic National Convention committee, granted to Milwaukee, but moved online due to pandemic.
Lasry, son of Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry, tweeted that his vaccination was “pure chance, but I am incredibly grateful”. Alex Lasry told the newspaper that his wife’s uncle who called about the vaccine is an Ovation Chai Point Senior Living rabbi.
“It is safe, healthy and like all of us we are finally going to get out of this pandemic,” he tweeted. “As distribution continues, if available, please don’t waste any vaccines! Get vaccinated!”
Governor Tony Evers said during an update on Friday about Wisconsin’s vaccination efforts that state health officials are encouraging providers to use all the vaccine they have.
“They should just put it on someone’s arm,” said Evers.
As for Lasry, Evers said he is not sure what happened. Evers, who is 69, said he is waiting for his doctor to contact him about making an appointment for his first injection, because they became available to everyone over 65 in Wisconsin as of Monday.
He said he is waiting for his doctor to contact him about making an appointment for his first injection.
Lasry said he received no special treatment because of his position at the Bucks, his political aspirations or his father’s wealth.
“This has nothing to do with anything,” Lasry told the newspaper. “Honestly, if I hadn’t been married to Lauren, I don’t know if I would have received a call or known about it.”
Evers said he would rather see providers administer the vaccine outside the priority stages than waste it, saying the number of doses administered outside the protocols will be a tiny percentage of all inoculations.
Health Services Department Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said that sometimes providers can get more doses of individual vials than planned and no one wants to waste a vaccine. Many providers maintain waiting lists of people they can call quickly if doses exceed schedule, she said.
“We don’t want a missed dose,” she said. “We need all these doses in the arms. This is how it can happen, even with excellent planning.”
All vaccine suppliers have signed an agreement to provide doses according to the state’s priority stages, said Van Dijk. If providers violate the guidelines perpetually, state officials will speak to them and may decide to stop sending any doses to those providers, she said.
“We talked to several places and saw changes in the behavior of that,” she said. “(But) there is no way to police every vaccine that is put on one arm at the end of the day.”