Doroshin said Farley should be replaced by Deputy Health Commissioner Dr. Caroline Johnson, offering praise for her collaboration in building a mass vaccine model. His company claimed earlier this month that it could administer 50 times the number of daily vaccines delivered during the H1N1 crisis.
The city s vaccine supply remains greatly limited, with efforts focused on health care employees, high-risk groups and essential workers. Officials expect it will take months before the vaccine becomes widely available to all Philadelphia residents who seek it.
Reached Friday afternoon, the health department declined to respond directly to Doroshin s remarks, though spokesperson James Garrow added that the continued allegations against Philly Fighting COVID reinforce that we made the right decision.
Farley is taking full responsibility for the now-failed partnership between the city and Philly Fighting COVID. Ultimate, the responsibility for that goes to me. The report will outline more about the process, but ultimately I take responsibility for that, said Dr. Farley.
The report he is referring to was specifically requested by Mayor Jim Kenney on Friday, who has directed the Philadelphia Department of Public Health to take a number of corrective steps following the fallout with Philly Fighting COVID s vaccine distribution.
On Friday morning, Kenney sent a letter to Farley directing the department to host its own clinics and produce a public report within 30 days detailing how the organization came to work with city.
Kimberly Paynter/WHYY
Originally published on January 30, 2021 12:06 pm
It started out as a group of college friends who wanted to help during the pandemic. They had tech skills, so they used 3D printers to make face shields. Then they organized as a nonprofit, Philly Fighting Covid, and opened a testing site in a Philadelphia neighborhood that didn t have one yet.
But the organization s leader, Andrei Doroshin, had bigger ambitions. Even before the first coronavirus vaccine was authorized, he made plans to be involved. Doroshin is a 22-year-old graduate student in psychology at Drexel University. He has no background in health care.
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