The allegations raise more troubling questions about Philly Fighting COVID and its leader just hours after the city dropped the group’s vaccines over concerns about the pursuit of profiteering and other “worrying” behavior, first reported by WHYY News and Billy Penn was excavated in a series. stories over the past week.
In a non-contractual agreement, the city of Philly Fighting COVID provided thousands of vaccine doses to distribute at the city’s mass vaccination center, which opened at the Pennsylvania Convention Center earlier this month.
According to Pennsylvania licensing requirements, which the City of Philadelphia follows, only certain medical professionals – including doctors, nurses and pharmacists – may be vaccinated. Students and other technicians may be eligible to administer vaccines under direct supervision. Doroshin, a graduate neuroscience student at Drexel, does not meet any of the criteria for a vaccine.
In an unrelated interview last week, Department of Health spokesman James Garrow used this scenario as an example of a disqualifying practice for the organization co-sponsored by the city.
“If Andrei Doroshin gives vaccines, I would like to know, because then we would close it,” Garrow said.
Lipinksy also said that there were pre-medical, nursing students and staff members who administered the vaccines and filled syringes with liquid. Under Pennsylvania law, those individuals may be vaccinated if they are under direct supervision. Lipinsky said clinical professionals were in the area but not directly supervised.
“They ran around like children at the end of the day to vaccinate each other,” she said.
Lipinksi herself was not asked for her qualifications as a registered nurse after she was already offered at the clinic, she said.
Founded last year, Philly Fighting COVID went from a student production PPE to set up one of the largest coronavirus testing operations in the city, to the city’s first mass vaccine distributor in just nine months.
The astral orbit suddenly came to an end on Monday after the city distanced itself weeks from the once confident in the fight against the pandemic. It remains unclear whether the city was aware of the allegations that Doroshin took vaccinations on Saturday before ending their relationship.
In recent interviews with national publications, Doroshin compares his vision for a vaccination program in a McDonald’s-like franchise and a factory that can move from city to city. He also advocated ‘ceasing to use best practices’ for the sake of efficiency.
“The old best practices in healthcare in terms of intramuscular injections were written for a hospital visit that will take 30 minutes for which you visit as a service provider,” Doroshin said in an interview with HealthDay last week. “Most of the best practices can go out the window.”
This is an important news story and will be updated.