On Monday, I received a text from my healthcare provider, the NYU Langone Health medical centre in New York, with the cheery message: “The Covid-19 vaccine will be here in early 2021. We will contact you as soon as we have info about who can get it when.”

But there was a caveat: since the doctors at NYU Langone Health have no idea when that “info” might arrive, the text also urged me not to contact them — yet.

Even if those inquiries would mostly have come from the worried well, many healthcare providers in New York (and other regions) are reportedly facing a barrage of requests from the rich and powerful, desperate for access to the first round of vaccines. Indeed, the question of how to get a vaccination fast is sparking a welter of gossip in gilded circles.