PHILADELPHIA — City Council Spends The Week On Philly Fighting COVID.

In the fallout of the Inquirer and WHYY’s uncovering of the scandal surrounding Philly Fighting Covid, a local startup that received funding from the city to provide testing and vaccination sites, city council has introduced legislation to strengthen their oversight over the partnerships the city enters, and individual members have shown that they are going to “get to the bottom of this.”

City Council in Virtual Session (Screen Capture from Philadelphia City Council Live Stream)

Philly Fighting COVID, a foundling startup with 22 year-old CEO Andrei Noroshin at the helm, was given a handshake contract with Mayor Kenney to provide testing and vaccination centers in various sites throughout the city last winter. Since then, scandal after scandal has come to light about Noroshin, Kenney, and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

“I’m never surprised by a screw-up from City Hall, but this whole thing is just outrageous.” — Josh Kelly, Temple Graduate Student

Noroshin has recently claimed innocence, but has admitted to stealing COVID-19 vaccinations and distributing them to his friends. He is also being investigated over Philly Fighting Covid’s policy of selling patient data, which was unknown to city officials until 2021. Last, but not least, Noroshin also welcomed more scrutiny when it came to light that Council Member Bobby Henon’s family had received at-home testing from PFC in late January.

“If I stole food from the restaurant I worked at and gave it to my friends, I’d be fired on the spot. How does this kid get to do this when the vaccine is so important!” — Julia McGehean, Server at Parc

This storm of events has certainly made the need for action clear to the council. According to the Council’s press release, the legislation proposed by Council Member Bass (8th District) Monday aims to “address deficiencies in how the city Health Department allowed an unqualified group of non-public health professionals gain access to thousands of doses of COVID-19 vaccine for distribution to city residents.” In short, it will enforce new requirements upon health partners that embody a written, public contract and that those within the contract report back to the Council and Health Department once every two weeks.

Council President Clarke spoke on behalf of the legislation, adding that “More than 105,000 people have contracted this virus in Philadelphia, and over 2,800 people have died. We have more than 1.5 million people to get vaccinated.”

Council President Darrell Clarke Speaks Outside City Hall in 2020 (Photo by William T Ross)

In the same Monday session, Councilmember Maria Quinones Sanchez (7th) also called for a review of the “pass-throughs” that the city relies on such as the Philadelphia Mental Health Care Corporation “which made the initial grant to Philly Fighting COVID.”

Quinones Sanchez say that she has “been raising the alarm about these types of pass-through arrangements for many years. The residents of Philadelphia demand answers. It’s now the obligation of the City Council to review what occurred and provide clarity and transparency.”

Councilmember At Large Allan Domb echoed this sentiment and spoke to the anger felt in the city by stating that “the multiple websites, lack of coordinated data collection, and the delay in ramping up an intake portal have all led to confusion and frustration for Philadelphians,” said Councilmember Domb. “We continue to be in a time where every decision literally may mean the difference between life and death.”

The council will hold a public hearing tomorrow at 1 PM. Commissioner Farley will be present and answering the public’s questions. It is expected to be contentious and will be focused on how this travesty occurred. Looking forward, many members of the council are proposing new ideas to get Philadelphia up to speed with COVID-19 vaccination.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3YXjSa6g_4[/embed]

Councilmember Domb has proposed a massive increase in drive-through vaccination sites in unused parking lots and a tax credit for buildings that renovate and replace ventilation systems with newer models that mitigate COVID-19 exposure. Councilmember At Large Helen Gym has also published a list on her Council webpage entitled “10 THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE VACCINE DISTRIBUTION FAIRER AND REBUILD TRUST” which details workable solutions to many of the problems Philadelphia has faced in terms of vaccination.

[embed]https://phlcouncil.com/[/embed][embed]https://phlcouncil.com/[/embed][embed]https://phlcouncil.com/[/embed]

PPD Commissioner Rick Ross Meets with City Council

PPD Officer (Photo by William Ross

City Hall — Philadelphia City Council commissioners questioned PPD Commissioner Rick Ross and his deputy commissioners on Tuesday during a budget hearing about police tactics, requirements and reforms.

On Tuesday, City Council President Darrell Clarke along with council members Quinones-Sanchez, Oh, Domb, Jones, Henon, and Brown held a meeting with Philadelphia Police Department leadership to discuss the next fiscal year’s budget. The council members all expressed great gratitude to Commissioner Ross for the work the PPD has been doing, but also raised questions about gun violence, body cameras and Mayor Kenney’s proposed 36 million dollar Philadelphia Resilience Project.

In concern to gun violence among young people, council member Quinones-Sanchez raised questions to Commissioner Ross about alternative activities and after-school programs available to young people that may keep them from straying towards gangs and violence. Ross responded by validating her concerns, stating that violence won’t be reduced “by starting the game at third base” and ignoring the societal conditions that lead to increased rates of crime. He says that “we need to deal with the real issues” such as alleviating the symptoms of poverty.

Council member Oh soon after began his time by claiming that police are “restricted” and “afraid to do their job because there are many ways that they can be punished for it.” Commissioner Ross echoed his sentiments and the two discussed the illegal riding of all-terrain-vehicles on public roads with seeming impunity as an example. Oh cited a vocal “disrespect of law enforcement” which Ross claims is also responsible for the increased numbers of firearm-carrying individuals the PPD has encountered lately. Largely sharing council member Oh’s feelings about the current policing climate and offering to include more funding for the police department in the budget, council member Domb then brought up the department’s Stop and Frisk program. He asked Commissioner Ross what the expected outcome would be if the city terminated the program. Ross answered by saying that it would be “the road to disaster” citing the department’s raise in gun arrests since the program was implemented.

Continuing the theme of violent crime, council member Jones took the floor to ask Ross about the lack of trust towards the PPD and a seemingly rampant “no-snitching” code in some areas. Ross observed that community participation is vital to proper policing, but did not dive into reforms or actions being taken to increase that participation. Following Jones was council member Brown who brought up past issues at the department with trespassing charges that were exemplified in the now famous Starbucks incident earlier this year. She asked if changes had been made since the incident and what, if any new crisis-intervention tactics were being taught to PPD officers. Ross claimed increased training in de-escalation and crisis-intervention, but cited mental illness as the true underlying issue with these types of situations. Brown followed up with a question about body cameras and a PPD policy that “allows officers to review the video footage” of an incident before making a statement or filing a report. Ross denied the narrative, claiming that that policy does not apply to “incidents involving a use of force” and that no national standards for body cameras exist among law enforcement departments.

The meeting concluded with President Clarke asking for more time at a later date to further question Commissioner Ross about the budgetary needs of the department. The council members all seemed very much in support of the PPD and Ross’s efforts with even more funding offered as a possibility. Ross seemed confident and even jovial throughout the meeting, knowing that his budgetary requests are likely to be approved.

-William Ross

185 Days Later

Six months have passed since the arrival of COVID-19 — What is the state of the response?

Marco Farnese’s restaurant lies dormant during the COVID-19 Pandemic (Photo by William Ross)

Chester County, PA — COVID-19 cases have been rising near Philadelphia and other suburban areas leaving patients, providers and public health officials to face renewed struggles against the effects of the virus. The following interviews with providers, patients and public officials cast light on these continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the virus continues to plague the nation month after month, the immediate consequences and aftermath of the deadly disease have continued to mount for healthcare professionals. Nationwide reports of understaffed hospitals with inadequate equipment have flooded the news cycle since March, but much of this additional burden upon hospitals comes from elsewhere. While it is easy to imagine hospital staff being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and rushing to supply ventilators room to room, Paoli Hospital RN Jeanne Levasseur says the added expectations on healthcare professionals stem from the “aftereffects of isolation.” These aftereffects grow and grow as people are isolated for longer periods of time and as time passes depression, anxiety, loneliness and dread manifest themselves in more and more harmful ways.

Citing an extremely alarming rise in suicide attempts and substance abuse, LeVasseur says she and her staff are dealing with ever increasing levels of self harm: “These cases are really at the heart of our staffing issues. Patients who attempt suicide require around-the-clock supervision and if I am sitting with one of these patients, then I can’t help anyone else through my shift.” Levasseur is experienced in treating cases such as these, but they are becoming darker and more common as the pandemic rages. She says that “one night last week a patient came in who had tried to overdose on Midol. She was 16 years old.” With a nurse taken off the floor with each of these cases, the hospital staff is squeezed more and more as the numbers rise. LeVasseur says that morale has stayed relatively high among the staff despite the lack of manpower and resources, but that every individual can help them by following the CDC guidelines about COVID-19 and generally staying healthy in every available way.

While the perspective of a frontline employee in the fight against the pandemic is invaluable and LeVasseur speaks of hope in the healthcare field, there is a reasonable, but unclear fear of entering a hospital that exists among the general public. Many of us have been consciously more careful in our daily lives in order to avoid any unnecessary trips to the emergency room that might include the possibility of COVID-19 exposure. What about those who cannot avoid it? South Philadelphia business owner and recent Pennsylvania Hospital patient Marco Farnese had thoughts to share on what it is like to be a patient during the pandemic. Farnese has taken the pandemic seriously from the very beginning and has followed every precaution to keep him and his wife safe from infection. Both are at a higher risk simply due to their age and have been extraordinarily careful of exposure for months on end. Unfortunately, he could not prepare for an unexpected bout of cancer discovered earlier this summer and has since had to break his set of quarantine rules to begin chemotherapy treatment and undergo several surgeries.

Farnese says the competency of the staff and the quality of care he received made him feel “comfortable” in the hospital, saying that “it really wasn’t so terrible and I feel alright now, though I’d go through moments of panic about how many rooms the nurse had been in before — if everyone was really following the guidelines. The only incident that worried me was when a man brought in my meal, he had his mask down under his nose.” Farnese states that the staff did test him for COVID-19 upon arrival for his prior surgeries, but states that the last time he went into Pennsylvania Hospital for chemotherapy that the staff had “stopped taking temperatures.” He is concerned about that and hopes they reinstate the older policy. His experience echoes many others, as Americans still must visit hospitals and clinics for routine and emergency services despite the pandemic and its risks.

While battling the pandemic both healthcare professionals and patients must also work within the systems that have governed the public response to COVID-19. Along with the mortality and danger associated with the virus, this disease has exposed deep political divisions at the local, state and federal levels of leadership that have affected the choices that decide how we as citizens fare. To share some information about how this has played out at a local government level in a more rural area, North Carolina’s Macon County Public Health Department Information Officer Emily Ritter spoke with me over the phone about the county’s response to the virus. Ritter’s main duties consist of educating the county population about public health measures and specifically the teaching of practices that protect against infectious diseases. Ritter says that political disagreements in leadership along with a long standing shortage of specific medical supplies needed by the MCPHD form the greatest barriers to COVID-19 relief in Macon County. She says that while the guidelines that were proposed by the CDC and the MCPHD were generally accepted at first in Macon County, guards were dropped as the months went on and local leaders began to publicly voice their doubts in the reality of the virus. She fears a new spike of cases in the area because “the measures we put in place were working, so now people think they don’t need to keep following them and have stopped taking it seriously.”

Currently “people at high levels such as the county commissioners and county manager are playing politics with people’s health” Ritter says, citing the lack of support and outright derelictions of duty from higher levels of government. She mentions that an egregious example of this problem can be seen in the county sheriff. Due to a smaller web of public services, much of the immediate response to the virus in rural communities has fallen upon local sheriff’s departments. These deputies are often the first on the scene of medical emergencies when ambulances are few and far between and they are handling added duties during the pandemic, but according to Ritter the Macon County Sheriff, Robby Holland, “doesn’t believe in it.” Ritter says that Holland, among others in local law enforcement have shared their doubts since early March and have simply refused to take the virus seriously.

With Holland as the most visible public figure in the area, his actions have set a bad example that Ritter and the MCPHD must counter if they hope to battle the virus more effectively. To combat this, Ritter says that “we need bold choices right now, but those in higher levels of county management are not willing to sacrifice or lead.” With elections coming and tensions high in Macon County as elsewhere, the political divisions on science and health will surely become wider. Clearly this difference in viewpoints is unhelpful and coming together in agreement with the nation’s scientists and doctors would certainly be a step in the right direction of bridging the gap.

These perspectives from surrounding angles of the American reaction to COVID-19 provide a glimpse into how nationwide trends of the national health crisis are playing out at the individual level. While one While wide-reaching responses to the virus have been reduced over the past few months, the virus continues to claim thousands of lives and wreak havoc on our institutions. National leadership has refused to act in recent months and has left the thought of another bill such as the CARES Act extremely unlikely. While healthcare professionals are stretched thinly, patients are concerned and public officials are frustrated, every American can help ease their burdens by following the official guidelines.