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US

Philly Fighting COVID CEO Andrei Doroshin Admits to Giving Vaccines to Friends – NBC10 Philadelphia

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The 22-year-old CEO of a company once working with the City of Philadelphia to distribute coronavirus vaccines but now embroiled in controversy admitted that he took some vaccines home with him and injected his friends.

Andrei Doroshin made the confession Thursday on the TODAY Show in what was his first TV interview since the fallout of the scandal involving Philly Fighting COVID, a group that once injected city-issued vaccines. The city has since cut ties after the group failed to disclose that it recently became a for-profit company, after collecting the personal information of thousands of residents.

Doroshin defended his decision to inject his friends, despite not being a registered nurse. He told TODAY’s Stephanie Gosk that he administered four doses which had been left over and were about to expire. Doroshin maintained he and his group made calls looking people at high risk who qualified for a shot but could not find anyone.

“I stand by that decision. I understand that I made that mistake. That is my mistake to carry for the rest of my life, but it is not the mistake of the organization,” Doroshin said.

City health officials had said Wednesday that an audit of vaccine doses given to Philly Fighting COVID found “no evidence that vaccine was wasted, stolen, or otherwise misused.”

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s decision to partner with PFC, a 9-month-old startup, despite having a litany of other options in the hospital-heavy city, was surprising from the get-go.

“Why we have to rely on an organization that is less than nine months old, started by students primarily to produce PPE, and not by organizations that have a vetted track record around helping people address COVID-19, is beyond me,” Councilwoman Katherine Gilmore Richardson said. “I’m flabbergasted, I’m dismayed and I’ll never understand how this happened.”

The group never signed a contract with the city before receiving vaccine doses, because, health department spokesman James Garrow said, the city did not receive federal funds to distribute the doses. Instead, the city requires only that organizations fill out an interest form before receiving and distributing the vaccine, he said.

The city has declined to make public the registration form that Philly Fighting COVID filled out to begin getting doses.

Initially, the group was testing for the coronavirus and set up shop at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where they ran vaccination clinics and injected nearly 7,000 people. But in recent weeks, the department of health said PFC abruptly stopped testing for the virus, as well, a key component of the partnership.

As recently as Jan. 8, the city actively directed people toward the group’s website to “pre-commit” to being notified when they qualified for a vaccine. However, the group only recently posted a privacy policy, following concerns about people’s personal information being sold off, which Doroshin said has not happened and would violate HIPAA rules.

The city has since set up its own website and is encouraging people to sign up there instead.

PFC also started billing instance companies for the vaccines, despite receiving them for free. Doroshin defended that decision, as well, claiming that the donations the group was receiving were not enough to cover the costs of running the vaccination clinics.

However, reporting from WHYY and Billy Penn has since indicated Doroshin embellished his resumé and always planned to make a profit. A former volunteer at PFC told the news outlets that Doroshin openly bragged about using the opportunity to become a millionaire.

The group has also come under scrutiny for other allegedly shoddy practices.

Katrina Lipinsky, a registered nurse and former PFC volunteer, told NBC10 she found it “unusual” that the group didn’t ask to see her credentials before allowing her to administer vaccines.

It’s now unclear if Doroshin, who says he has recently received death threats, will face any criminal charges. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Kraner and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro are looking into the matter.

Several Philadelphia City Council members are also calling for hearings into the partnership between the city and the group.



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Business

Companies are giving up on the United States and betting big on China

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Direct investment in the US by foreign companies plummeted 49% to $134 billion last year, according to a report released Sunday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. By contrast, foreign direct investment in China grew by 4% to $163 billion in 2020.

2020 marked the first year in history that foreign direct investment in China overtook that of the US, according to the UN. China is now the world’s largest recipient of foreign companies’ investments.

Although Covid-19 was a large factor in foreign direct investment tumbling in the US — and most places around the world — the drop-off in foreign companies’ American investments began well before the pandemic.

After hitting a high of $440 billion in 2015, according to the US Commerce Department, foreign investment in the US has been on a sharp downward slide. Former President Donald Trump’s go-it-alone trade policies hurt foreign investment — particularly from China, which represented the sharpest drop in US investment over the past several years. Growing economic uncertainty around the globe also contributed to the decline.

Last year, decline in foreign direct investment into the US was most prominent in wholesale trade, financial services and manufacturing, the report said. International mergers and acquisitions, as well as sales of US assets to foreign investors, fell by 41%.

Meanwhile, China’s explosive economic growth — and quick recovery from the pandemic — helped foreign investment there soar. China’s economy grew 2.3% last year, when most of the world’s major economies shrank. The country enforced stringent lockdown and population tracking policies intended to contain the virus, and set aside hundreds of billions of dollars for major infrastructure projects to fuel economic growth.
China’s ability to control the spread of the virus “helped stabilize investment after the early lockdown,” the report noted.
Foreign direct investment to India has similarly skyrocketed, from less than $25 billion in 2014 — before Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power — to $57 billion last year, according to the UN report. Much of that growth was brought about by policies that enabled global brands like Ikea and Uniqlo to open up stores, as well as Modi’s signature “Make in India” campaign to grow the country’s manufacturing base.

That helped India’s foreign direct investment soar 13% last year.

Most economies weren’t so lucky. Foreign direct investment in the United Kingdom and Italy fell by almost 100%. Russia’s foreign direct investment fell 96%, Germany’s sank 61% and Brazil’s plunged by 50%. Australia, France, Canada and Indonesia — all among the top foreign direct investment recipients in 2019 — also fell by double digits.

Overall, foreign direct investment tumbled 42% last year to the lowest level since the 1990s — and 30% below the lowest level reached during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

The attractiveness of the US as a safe and robust place for foreign companies to invest has been one of the more powerful driving forces behind America’s economic growth over the past several decades. But the UN said the circumstances stopping the flow of foreign direct investment to the US and other countries will remain in place this year.

“The effects of the pandemic on investment will linger,” James Zhan, director of UNCTAD’s investment division, said in a statement. “Investors are likely to remain cautious in committing capital to new overseas productive assets.”

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