City cuts ties with vaccination partner Philly Fighting COVID after change in corporate status

PHILADELPHIA - The city is no longer working with Philly Fighting COVID or providing the vaccine to the organization operating a mass vaccine clinic out of the Convention Center.

The announcement came Monday night from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. In fact, the city effective Monday says it has completely cut ties with the organization which launched the site at the convention center just last month. That means no testing there and no vaccines there. 

In a statement, the city says in part, "We are currently developing plans to shift future vaccine allocations to other providers & working to schedule new clinics to ensure that people who were vaccinated at PFC’s clinics at the Convention Center can get their second dose. We have the contact information of everyone who received their first dose at PFC's clinics at the Convention Center, and we will be in contact with each of those people to set up 2nd dose appointments." 

Why the abrupt change? Health department officials say they were recently made aware of a change in Philly Fighting COVID's corporate status that happened without the city's knowledge. 

It went from non-profit to for-profit. With that change, officials say PFC updated its data privacy policy in a way that could allow them to sell your information they obtained when you pre-registered for testing or the vaccine on its site. 

The Health Department calls this quote "troubling" and says they've decided to stop providing the vaccine supply to Philly Fighting COVID.

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