What to know
- The revelation that the city didn’t need vaccine administrator contracts comes a day after the relationship with a company called Philly Fighting COVID ended.
- The city ditched Philly Fighting COVID over privacy and data concerns after it became known that the organization is profit-driven.
- The city’s health secretary said he will look at better ways to “ monitor ” organizations before working with them.
An organization called Philly Fighting COVID run by a 22-year-old Drexel University researcher received 6,950 doses of the coronavirus vaccine from the city of Philadelphia before the city ended the relationship abruptly on Monday.
The termination of the partnership came after the city was warned by media reports that Philly Fighting COVID had become a for-profit company. There were concerns that the company, founded by Andrei Doroshin, could sell data provided by people looking for the vaccine.
On Tuesday, city officials, amid questions about the vetting process that the Philadelphia Public Health Department uses to evaluate vaccine partners, acknowledged that there are no contracts with organizations administering the vaccine on behalf of the city.
“There is no contract with a supplier to deliver vaccines,” said James Garrow, public health spokesman.
He said the city only required organizations to fill out a form.
“Every organization that dispenses vaccines in Philadelphia registered with the health department with a form that ensures they can meet the minimum requirements for vaccine distribution,” said Garrow. “There is no tax contract between the city and a COVID vaccine supplier because the city has not received any money at all from the federal government to distribute the vaccine.”
Health Secretary Dr. Thomas Farley said the public health department “will see what kinds of additional things we could do to monitor every organization that works with us.”
“In retrospect, this organization was not right for us to have a partnership with that organization,” said Farley.
A spokesman for Mayor Jim Kenney declined to comment further.
Garrow did not immediately respond to a request for a list of organizations that have received COVID-19 doses from the city, or how many doses have been given to each.
Of the 6,950 doses given to Philly Fighting COVID, city health officials have data on 6,757 being administered. There are 193 that are not listed.
Doroshin did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement he published on Twitter, Doroshin said “we understand legitimate questions have been asked about our privacy policy.”
“My apologies for the error in our privacy policy,” the statement said. “We never have and will never sell, share or distribute any data we have collected as this would violate HIPAA rules.”
“We’re here for Philly,” he added.
As of Tuesday, more than 132,000 doses have been received by the city. Of these, 90,600 were administered as first doses and 24,000 as second doses.
The city expected to receive 20,000 doses per week by the end of February.
Farley promised that anyone who got their first dose through Philly Fighting COVID would get their second dose on time.
He also said Philly Fighting has told COVID that they have no plans to sell the data.
“We are working with our legal department to see if there is a way to make sure this doesn’t happen, now [Philly Fighting COVID is] saying that information has not been released, ”Farley said.
Monday evening, the company added a privacy policy and terms of service to its website. It also deleted a staff page, including Doroshin. However, the page can still be viewed in a cached version of the site.
The end of the collaboration between the city and Philly Fighting COVID was first reported by WHYY.
“We are a bunch of geeks, engineers and scientists who have come together to fight this pandemic,” said a line at the top of the team page.
Despite Farley’s assurances and a statement in bold on the website that reads: “* THE COMPANY DOES NOT SELL DATA TO ANY PARTIES, “the language of the privacy policy is less clear.
“We may share or transfer your personal information in connection with or during negotiations regarding a merger, sale of business assets, financing or acquisition of all or any portion of our business to another company,” the policy reads under a section entitled “Before business transfers. “
Two law enforcement officers, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and District Attorney Larry Krasner, both said on Twitter that anyone who thinks they know about vaccine abuse should contact their offices.