Andrei Doroshin

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Doroshin at the PFC vaccine site opening with Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, Councilman Bobby Hennon, Councilman Mark Squila, Dr. Karol Osipowicz, and deputy health commissioner Dr. Caroline Johnson (right to left).

Andrei Doroshin was the CEO of Philly Fighting COVID, a controversial^[1] nonprofit organization in Philadelphia,^[2][3] an organization that played a role in the city's COVID-19 response before its relationship with the city was terminated due in part to questions about Doroshin's qualifications, the organization's plans to transition to a for-profit model, and its handling of citizens' data.^[4]

Career[]

Most notably, Doroshin was the CEO of the Philadelphia non-profit Philly Fighting Covid that manufactured over 5,000 face shields, tested over 21,000 people, and vaccinated over 6,800 people before the city terminated the relationship due to a number of controversies that are the subject of a report by the Office of the Inspector General for Philadelphia. Overall, this was a giant mess that could have been prevented by not giving a grad student with no experience a lucrative contract.^[4]

Philly Fighting Covid (PFC)[]

Founding and face shields[]

In March 2020, Doroshin founded a non-profit corporation named Philly Fighting Covid^[5] in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization first created face-shields during the global PPE shortage.^[6] Doroshin brought together a team of engineers, operations personnel, supply chain experts, and volunteers to build a sustained face shield manufacturing operation.^[7] Doroshin oversaw the creation of a research and design facility, manufacturing facility, and a decontamination and packaging facility.^[8] In total, Philly Fighting Covid manufactured, cleaned, packaged, and delivered over 5,000 face shields.^[9]

COVID-19 testing[]

Philly Fighting COVID falsely claimed^[10] that, in June 2020, it opened the first testing site in Philadelphia that did not require a doctor's note, patient symptoms, or insurance/payment, but the Black Doctors COVID-19 consortium was the first to open a site in April 2020.^[11][12][13] Initially, Philly Fighting Covid (PFC) was doing 300 tests a week and operated solely with personal and donor funds.^{[14][15][failed verification]}

In July 2020, PFC partnered with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and received funding ($194,234) to conduct COVID-19 testing. With this support from the city, PFC tested over 1,000 patients per week.^[16] The contract did not specify specific testing locations but PFC represented that the organization would focus on underserved communities and frontline healthworkers.^[4] They began work in the Fishtown neighborhood where they were offered a space under I95 that allowed for easy drive-thru access. They began by only testing 100-200 patients a day and only operating 2-3 times a week, but slowly grew to over 700 patients a day at this site and operating over five times a week, oftentimes working holidays. Doroshin and his team expanded their operation to communities such as Society Hill. The City of Philadelphia contacted Doroshin to direct him to immediately cease operations at the Society Hill site, as it had not authorized testing at that location and as "city-funded testing was to be prioritized in underserved areas, not Society Hill."

A later report from the City of Philadelphia Office of Inspector General found that the relationship between the organization and the city was "challenging," with Doroshin described as "unprofessional and rather aggressive" by city staff members, which they suspected indicated a lack of financial stability in the organization.^[4] City officials fielded several citizen complaints about Philly Fighting COVID's testing, including by one complainant who reported the organization's failure to notify her of her positive test results led to significant COVID exposure at her workplace. Due to billing discrepancies, the Health Department eventually refused to reimburse the organization for testing services. Philly Fighting COVID then abruptly ceased testing operations, canceling fourteen upcoming testing events at four different sites scheduled for the following week. The report also found that the organization was "significantly deficient" in the area of reporting demographics, only furnishing data for approximately 32% of tests.^[4] By contrast, another city contractor, the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, was missing this information for just 4% of tests.^[10] The OIG found that that Philly Fighting COVID had the lowest reporting percentage "by a significant margin".^[4]

One nurse associated with the organization also raised concerns about Philly Fighting COVID's protection of confidential medical information, as personally identifying documents frequently ended up being thrown, unshredded and unredacted, into a dumpster near the testing site. In response to these concerns, Doroshin put his 19-year-old brother, who had no medical experience, in charge of HIPAA compliance.^[10] City officials quickly shut PFA's vaccine operation down when Doroshin switched the website's privacy notice to allow selling of patient data.^[17] When interviewed about the city cutting ties with his organization, Doroshin responded "I'm a freaking grad student."^[17]

COVID-19 vaccinations[]

On December 24, 2020, Doroshin was approved by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health to open a mass COVID-19 vaccine site on January 8, 2021.^[18] Doroshin hired cybersecurity experts, software engineers, medical operations staff, process engineers, and contracted with PREPMOD (a software recommended by the CDC) to ensure that our data systems would be operational. Doroshin hired over 20 registered nurses, 20 providers (nurse practitioners, pharmacist, MD, DO, or PA) and brought on over 30 nursing students to run the clinic.^[19] Working closely with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, the clinic was opened for healthcare workers in Philadelphia.^[20] Doroshin's team vaccinated over 6,800 vaccines in five days of operation.^[21] After alerts from the media, the Health Commissioner reviewed Philly Fighting COVID's data policy and raised concerns that it allowed the organization to sell data collected from members of the public. In his announcement terminating the department's relationship with the organization, the Health Commissioner cited discomfort with the organization's candor and its data security.^[4]

In the report from the city Inspector General, "Accounts of those who were present during the first vaccination events suggest that most people were inoculated in an organized, safe and regulated manner. PFC staffed the clinics with a number of volunteer nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and paramedics - whom the company solicited and enrolled via social media. Health Department employees who were present described the January 8 and 9 clinics favorably, noting that lines moved quickly and efficiently. Administering personnel screened the patients to confirm that they had enrolled on the PFC sign-up (PrepMod) and were not at risk for adverse reaction to the vaccine. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone confirmed that the patients were associated with the unaffiliated healthcare groups and/or otherwise qualified as first-tier (1 A) priority recipients - as long as the patient had reserved the appointment, he/she was inoculated. Across the first two days, PFC administered a total of 2,570 doses and returned the remaining 50 unused doses to the Health Department. The Health Department was largely satisfied with the results of the events, based on the numbers and crowd flow. Accordingly, they moved forward with additional dates: January 15, 16 and 23.65 For these subsequent events, only one Health Department employee was present at any given time, in contrast to the much more significant City presence on January 8 and 9. Broadly, a number of different Health Department employees -including the Commissioner -confirmed that they essentially authorized PFC to administer vaccine outside of the pre-registered population and outside of priority tier I A if there was excess vaccine at the end of the clinics. As a matter of public health, vaccinating any person was preferable to discarding an otherwise usable dose. Across the final three clinic dates, PFC administered 3,950 doses and returned 690 doses to the Health Department. In total, the Health Department distributed 7,260 doses; of which PFC administered 6,520 and returned the remaining 740.And, according to the IIS data that PFC furnished, the number of inoculated individuals roughly reconciles with these figures." However, witnesses reported that a number of non-medical personnel, without appropriate qualifications, administered vaccines as staff vaccinated themselves with excess vaccines at the end of each day. Owing to this and issues with testing, the report concluded, "there is no question that the City of Philadelphia should never have been so closely aligned with Philly Fighting COVID."^[4]

Controversy[]

Owing to the media-based claims of data sale and for-profit entity conversion the city cut ties with PFC.^[4] The City of Philadelphia's Inspector General investigated the matter after the media backlash. The report stated the city of Philadelphia was placed at significant risk due to the partnership with Doroshin. "There was existing and available evidence at the department's disposal, including the dispute about the Society Hill testing events, billing issues, questions about the company's finances, serious problems with data collection on the testing side, negative information in the "secret shopper" review and Doroshin's overall reputation among Health Department employees. This information was never appropriately considered...This was a serious red flag that should not have been ignored."^[4]

Doroshin was also engulfed in controversy after eyewitness complaints that non-medical volunteers administered vaccine to one another and Doroshin secured an unspecified amount of vaccine doses and administered to his friends on snapchat. Doroshin defended his actions stating Health Department officials had authorized PFC to administer vaccines outside of priority 1a group to avoid vaccine waste.^[22]

The downfall of Philly Fighting Covid would not spell an end to Doroshin's controversial involvement with vaccination clinics. After the City of Philadelphia terminated its contract with him, Andrei Doroshin's father, Serge Doroshin, founded "Vax21" which opened vaccine clinics in Georgia and New York. A reporter learned that Andrei, despite having no medical qualifications, in the fall of 2021 was handling Vax21's training of medical staff at a New York City vaccine clinic. In December, 2021, Georgia's health commissioner notified Serge Doroshin that the state was terminating Vax21 from its vaccination program citing "egregious compliance issues," including "unauthorized transfer" of vaccines to unapproved health-care providers, failure to comply with vaccine storage and handling guidelines, and failure to complete required trainings.^[23]

Aftermath[]

After Doroshin's mismanagement of Philly Fighting COVID made local and eventually national news,^[24][1] he and his organization disappeared for weeks without a word. He returned with a cryptic email to PFA donors, saying he would focus on "money owed" and "recovering the good of our names", attributing PFA's missteps to "minor administrative decisions." In this same email, he blamed unnamed "competitors" for personally discrediting him and his organization. He did not apologize for his role in his organization's controversies. One of his donors said the email "once again signaled that [Doroshin] is in an altered state of reality where everyone is against him, and he did nothing wrong."^[25]

Education[]

Doroshin received his Bachelor's degree from Drexel University in 2021.^[26] Drexel University later expelled Doroshin during his first year as a Psychology graduate student.^[27]

References[]

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