The City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection is currently in sibling rivalry right now after news broke that white privilege seemed to have been given the upper hand.
This week, local and national headlines painted a picture that was nothing short of a Fyre Festival disaster when it was revealed that Philadelphia was terminating its first contract for a mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic. The contract had been awarded to a 22-year-old college student with no strong medical background.
Yes, that’s right, Andrei Doroshin, CEO of Philly Fighting COVID and a Drexel University undergrad, was given the contract to lead the first major vaccination roll-out in the city. With an all-white executive team, and also without any significant health-care experience, Philly Fighting COVID self-described itself as “a group of college kids” before eventually getting cut off from the city for the lack of transparency surrounding the company’s data privacy policy, for abruptly turning into a for-profit operation, and for not sticking to its contractual agreement to maintain testing sites.
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Before the controversy broke, the clinic lasted at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Downtown Philly for two and a half weeks as they administered nearly 7,000 shots—about 8 percent of the city’s total first-dose count. The Philadelphia Health Department authorized more than $111,000 to Philly Fighting COVID in invoiced charges for testing services. Growing concerns about the organization’s practices first attracted the local media and led to its eventual downfall.
To make matters worse, new stories are coming out about the tech-bro culture of Philly Fighting COVID, as former volunteers describe the leadership as money-hungry, misguided, and immature. “They were bragging about how rich they were going to get,” some volunteers told the press, with others saying that their former bosses “said they were gonna be millionaires” by billing insurance providers for administering vaccine doses that the organization got for free from the city.
Doroshin, who has denied such allegations, did admit to The Today Show on Thursday that he took leftover vaccine doses home and administered them to his friends while knowing he wasn’t qualified to do so. “The doses were about to expire,” he told Today. “We called everybody we knew. Every single person.”
The proper action would have been to return such unused vaccine doses back to the city, especially when you don’t have the proper certifications to administer them yourself. But who can be shocked that an unqualified college student who had already secured what is arguably one of the most important city contracts at the moment wouldn’t think he was above the law?
Now city officials are zeroing in on Philly Fighting COVID in full swing. Philadelphia City Council members are calling for an investigation and public hearing into all of the drama surrounding their operations. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is calling on citizens who have dirt on the group to contact him immediately, with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro calling the group’s behavior “unethical.”
All of this robust action from the city sounds promising, but it should have never happened in the first place. According to the Philadelphia Health Department, the only reason the city granted Philly Fighting COVID a contract was because the group was “the only one community provider that had finished their requisite forms and approvals and had come to us with a plan for how to distribute vaccines.”
In other words, the city clearly seemed to only care about who was first in line to submit, rather than who was actually qualified in the process. Our local government put the city’s vaccines in the hands of an immature executive leadership team that lacked the qualifications necessary and wouldn’t even administer such treatments in vulnerable Black and brown communities.
Translation: It sure smells like Philadelphia let white privilege run wild and now our city wants to hide its hands.
This is a travesty of epic proportions because with a population that’s 44 percent Black and a majority of color, Philadelphia deserved better. At a time when public distrust around the COVID-19 vaccination is still strong, especially in Black communities, this fiasco doesn’t help quell concerns. As someone who was recently vaccinated for doing nonprofit community work outside of my journalism, I was infuriated to hear stories of senior citizens who couldn’t get the vaccine due to the abrupt shutting down of Philly Fight COVID from the city. Now those awaiting their second dose have to reschedule and coordinate their different times due to a big fuck-up that wasn’t on them.
But the true racism lies in the fact that this didn’t have to happen. The city had an alternative organization that was more qualified, prepared, and ready to take on such an important endeavor. For nearly a year, the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium has been deep in diverse communities in Philadelphia ensuring that vulnerable populations are getting tested and now vaccinated. Led by Dr. Ala Stanford, a Black medical expert who has years of experience that exceeds Doroshin’s current age, the consortium has garnered national acclaim that has put a shining light over Philly during these dark times. I got my COVID-19 vaccination from the group two weeks ago, and it remains one of the most competent and stress-free health-care experiences I’ve had in my entire life.
And yet, Dr. Stanford claims she didn’t even know that such an application for the mass vaccination clinics were yet accessible until she found out about Philly Fighting COVID getting the big contract like the rest of us. “If there was anybody poised and ready to do this, it was us,” she told the Philadelphia magazine.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, Stanford was insulted when the city had the audacity to even suggest that she collaborate with Philly Fighting COVID to administer vaccine shots. “I happen to have been a doctor for 23 years, longer than some of these kids have been living,” she added. “But I need these white kids to teach me how to do it?”
Good question. Short answer: She didn’t.
What has now occurred in Philadelphia is a perfect example of how racism in health care can harm an entire community. As a result, the city has had to delay the scheduling of second dose roll-outs for Philadelphians who already had enough anxiety having to get the vaccine in the first place.
Right now, there is no mass vaccination program that has replaced Philly Fighting COVID as the city is still scrambling for alternative resources. In the meantime, the city is giving its remaining vaccines from Philly Fighting COVID to other health-care organizations and letting its commerce director be a part of the committee reviewing proposals for testing and vaccinations.
The city clearly didn’t do a better job vetting this organization, allowing for the public to presume racial bias and impatience could have caused an override of sensitivity, common sense, and diversity. Philadelphia Health Director Dr. Thomas Farley should definitely do more to restore the public’s trust in this regard.
Let what has happened in my city serve as a cautionary tale to the rest of the nation that such double standards and white privilege will hurt us even more now than ever.
