Philly speeds up estimated timeline for vaccinating all adults; where $1,400 stimulus checks stand; Pa. to open daily vaccine sites for teachers, school staff

The number of people in Pennsylvania who have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine from a clinic has exceeded 2 million, according to data made available Thursday from the state and Philadelphia.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported that 1,840,397 first doses have been administered and Philadelphia reported 233,804, for a total of 2,074,201.

That is equivalent to 16% of Pennsylvania’s total population (equivalent because more than 100,000 first doses were given to out-of-state residents).

The state numbers include doses given by the Walgreens pharmacy store chain at long-term care centers, but they do not include doses administered by CVS because those doses are not reported separately by first and second shots.

Statewide, 935,877 people have gotten both shots, equal to 7% of Pennsylvania’s total population.

— John Duchneskie

For the second year in a row, the Penn Relays competition has been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, officials announced Thursday.

The competition dates back to 1895 and had never been stopped — even through World War I and World War II — until 2020.

The University of Pennsylvania Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics officials also cited local restrictions on large gatherings that remain in effect. The 2021 Penn Relays had been scheduled for April 22 to 24.

Officials said that if health conditions improve on campus and in Philadelphia, the Penn Relays plans to host a local collegiate-only track and field meet on April 24 and will aim to host a meet for open and professional athletes in the coming months and a scholastic meet this summer.

“It is disappointing that we once again have to cancel one of the landmark events of the spring in Philadelphia and in track and field, but collectively we want to ensure the safety of our athletes, campus, community, and spectators,” M. Grace Calhoun, Penn’s athletic director, said in a statement.

“Our goal on campus has been to safely move through the Ivy athletic activity phases to host competition and we remain hopeful that we will be able to provide some competitive opportunities for as many athletes as possible who have missed out on so much this past year. Splitting the meet into three distinct group of participants provides the greatest opportunity to host safe competition,” Calhoun said.

For more information, including ticket refund options, click here.

» READ MORE: 2020 Penn Relays canceled because of coronavirus; first stoppage in Franklin Field track meet’s 126 years

— Robert Moran

Philadelphia City Council on Thursday passed legislation to increase transparency and oversight of vaccine distributors following the city’s controversial ill-fated partnership with the group Philly Fighting COVID.

The bill, authored by Councilmember Cindy Bass, requires the city to notify Council shortly after finalizing contracts for groups to hold clinics using vaccine doses provided by the city. It also requires publishing details about every vaccine provider on the city’s website every two weeks, including how many doses were provided each group, how many doses were distributed, and demographic data about vaccine recipients.

Passage of the bill is the latest fallout from the city’s relationship with Philly Fighting COVID, the vaccine distribution group run by a self-described “bunch of college kids” that Philadelphia cut ties with after learning it had quietly moved to form a for-profit arm that could sell patients’ data.

» READ MORE: City Council passes bill to reform vaccine transparency after Philly Fighting COVID scandal

— Sean Collins Walsh

The Pennsylvania Department of Health is investigating the extent to which the Philadelphia suburbs may have been shortchanged in the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine but abruptly rescheduled a planned call to discuss the issue with the region’s lawmakers on Thursday, leaving some officials further frustrated with a problem they have been asking the state to address for weeks.

“We rescheduled the call to make sure our analysis could be as robust as possible before holding the call with the delegation,” Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam said at a Thursday news conference, saying the department needs more time before talking with legislators and county health departments about what the area’s allocations will look like going forward.

It was not immediately clear when the Department of Health planned to reschedule the meeting.

Earlier this week, after an Inquirer report, the department said Delaware County was this week receiving an unspecified boost in doses to make up for the undersupply. But on Wednesday, a health department adviser declined to say whether other counties would see similar increases in line with their populations.

» READ MORE: Philly-area counties ‘need explanations’ about vaccine distribution after Department of Health reschedules call with officials

— Justine McDaniel and Erin McCarthy

Pennsylvania will be opening daily vaccine sites for teachers and other school staff beginning next week, commonwealth officials said Thursday.

Between March 10 and 13, the commonwealth plans to open at least one site per Intermediate Unit region, sites that will have daily and weekend hours. Most locations will be equipped to do 500 vaccinations a day, PEMA director Randy Padfield said, while those in larger areas will have the capacity to give up to 1,000 shots a day.

Teachers and other school staff voluntarily getting inoculated at these sites will receive the commonwealth’s initial shipment of 94,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine, officials said. Sites’ specific allocations will be based on the proportion of pre-K-to-12 public and non-public school employees and staff in that region.

The clinics will be run by the Pennsylvania National Guard and AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, LLC, an organization contracting with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

People working with elementary students, students with disabilities, and English learners will be prioritized, officials said, and bus drivers, janitorial staff, cafeteria workers, and teacher aides will also be included.

Acting health secretary Alison Beam said this new initiative will not delay the vaccinations of other eligible Pennsylvanians, who can still get Pfizer and Moderna shots elsewhere.

Through a separate federal program, Pennsylvania’s child care workers should expect to be contacted soon by Rite Aid, Topco or Walmart, employees of which will ask if they’d like to be vaccinated with the pharmacies’ separate allocations of Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

— Erin McCarthy

Every educator who works in Philadelphia and wants the COVID-19 vaccine can be fully inoculated by the end of the month, officials said Thursday.

Through a partnership between Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the city and the Philadelphia School District, about 9,000 teachers and other school staff have received their first doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and in all, 20,000 district, charter, parochial and independent school teachers, as well as daycare workers, have appointments for shots.

Altogether, about 35,000 are eligible to receive vaccines at one of six sites around the city — including CHOP’s main campus in West Philadelphia and South Philadelphia High School, where officials gathered in the gym Thursday for a news conference as hundreds of school staff were being vaccinated in the school auditorium.

The partnership with CHOP is a cutting-edge one nationally, according to Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. He said superintendents from other states told him in a call Wednesday that they are just now vaccinating their teachers over age 65.

“We’re particularly focused on doing all that we can to promote the safe reopening of schools across Philadelphia,” Ron Keren, CHOP’s medical director, said at the news conference. “The research clearly shows that students, particularly students from lower-income communities and disadvantaged backgrounds, do best when they’re in classrooms.”

Philadelphia health director Thomas Farley has also urged returning children, particularly elementary-aged students, to classrooms with safety precautions in place.

“I’m a pediatrician, I care a lot about children, and it’s been very sad for me to pass empty school buildings,” Farley said. “I’ve long thought that we need to have our kids back in school so they can learn, and set them up for a good future. It’s wonderful to be back in a school today.”

» READ MORE: 9,000 Philly teachers have been vaccinated and thousands more are eligible as some schools prepare to open Monday

— Kristen A. Graham

Philadelphia officials hope to be able to vaccinate all adult residents by late summer, according to the city’s latest update to its coronavirus vaccination plan.

“There is reason to be optimistic that by late summer, enough Philadelphia residents will be vaccinated to prevent most of the transmission of COVID-19,” the plan states.

That estimate is tentative and could still change; the city’s new plan, for example, was based on President Joe Biden’s mid-February announcement that 300 million doses of the vaccine would be produced by the end of July. This week, Biden said the country would reach that milestone by late May.

The Department of Public Health’s updated vaccine distribution plan released this week, outlines the city’s plans and estimates — including an estimate that by the end of May the city will have 150,000 doses arriving per week. That would represent a significant increase over the current weekly allocation of about 50,000 doses.

City officials expect a gradual increase in the number of vaccine doses, with weekly allocations rising to about 85,000 by the week of April 5 and to more than 100,000 by the week of April 26. But the plan also notes that a steady increase is “far from guaranteed.”

To increase the city’s capacity to vaccinate residents, the plan suggests that the fire department and Office of Emergency Management will open pop-up clinics as early as next week that would involve two teams of personnel rotating around outdoor locations in the city to vaccinate up to 150 people per day.

City officials had also assessed more than 100 potential sites for community clinics as of March 1 and identified 60 sites could potentially serve as vaccination clinics, the plan states. The sites assessed include Parks and Recreation facilities, Philadelphia Housing Authority properties, nonprofits, Live Nation concert venues, places of worship, schools, and the sports complex in South Philadelphia. The plan did not specify which sites could become vaccination clinics, but noted that criteria include large open space, accessibility, and proximity to public transit.

The plan also includes plans for hospitals, city-run clinics, community providers such as the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, and pharmacies to increase the number of people they vaccinate each week. And the site run by the federal government at the Pennsylvania Convention Center will also continue to vaccinate about 6,000 people per day for at least six weeks.

— Laura McCrystal

In part due to COVID-19 restrictions and a record number of flu shots, influenza cases have remained historically low across Pennsylvania this season.

Through Feb. 27, a total of 2,816 lab-confirmed influenza cases have been reported across the commonwealth. Fourteen Pennsylvania residents have died, and a total of 37 hospitalizations associated with the flu have been reported.

Last flu season, there were 131,282 cases in Pennsylvania, and 198 people died, including one child, according to data from the Department of Health. The year before, there were 99,308 influenza cases and 161 deaths, including two children.

“In recent years, flu activity has been widespread across Pennsylvania,” said acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam. “We can attribute the low flu activity in part to COVID-19 mitigation efforts that are also effective in preventing the flu, since the two infectious diseases spread the same way. In addition, a record number of individuals got their flu vaccine this season.”

The lower rate of the flu is a nationwide trend, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Feb. 12, the CDC reported 193.7 million doses of flu vaccine have been distributed in the United States. This surpassed the previous record of 174.5 million doses distributed during the 2019-20 flu season.

— Rob Tornoe

The third round of $1,400 payments would be slightly different under President Joe Biden’s changes on Wednesday

The Senate’s version of the legislation would send reduced payments to Americans earning more than $75,000 and $150,000 for joint filers, and cap payments at earnings of $80,000 and $160,000, respectively, The Associated Press reported.

Under the House’s bill, payments would have been gradually phased out and cut off for individuals making $100,000 and couples making $200,000.

It’s possible the final stimulus plan will change before it’s brought to a vote, which is expected next week.

“Until it’s signed, there’s always room for change,” said Lisa Borrelli, wealth tax and estate planner at WSFS.

Biden’s proposal would earmark an additional $1,400 per child dependent, to be added onto the checks of their parents or guardians, according to the latest version, said Borrelli. This contrasts with the first stimulus, where some claimed as a dependent, age 16 or under, got no money.

» READ MORE: Stimulus Q&A: Who gets $1,400 and when? Can my stimulus money be garnished for debts?

— Erin Arvedlund

Disney plans to close 20% of its Disney Store locations in North America this year, in part driven by the pandemic’s reduction of foot traffic in shopping malls.

“While consumer behavior has shifted toward online shopping, the global pandemic has changed what consumers expect from a retailer,” said Stephanie Young, president of consumer products, games and publishing.

At least 60 of the 300 Disney Stores worldwide will close, the company said, which will place more focus on its shopDisney e-commerce business.

Disney Stores located in an around Philadelphia include Springfield Mall, Cherry Hill Mall, Deptford Mall, and Christiana Mall. The company did not say which locations would close.

— Rob Tornoe

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits edged higher last week to 745,000, a sign that many employers continue to cut jobs despite a drop in confirmed viral infections and evidence that the overall economy is improving.

Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that jobless claims rose by 9,000 from the previous week. Though the pace of layoffs has eased since the year began, they remain high by historical standards. Before the coronavirus flattened the U.S. economy a year ago, applications for unemployment aid had never topped 700,000 in any week, even during the Great Recession.

All told, 4.3 million Americans are receiving traditional state unemployment benefits. Counting supplemental federal unemployment programs that were established to soften the economic damage from the virus, an estimated 18 million people are collecting some form of jobless aid.

» READ MORE: U.S. jobless claims tick up to 745,000 as layoffs remain high

— Associated Press

From Broad Street to the Delaware River, a swath of densely populated South Philadelphia neighborhoods has no easy access to desperately needed COVID-19 vaccines.

“We’ve got old people from South Philly trying to fudge their addresses so they can go to other states and other parts of this state so they can get vaccinated,” said Joseph F. Marino, president of the advisory council at East Passyunk Community Center. He has struggled for months to find doses for seniors who were regulars at the center before the pandemic.

The neighborhood is among the city’s vaccine deserts, where vulnerable residents can be close to a mile away from chain pharmacies, health centers, or mass vaccination sites providing doses. The distance might not seem excessive for the young and healthy. But for the infirm or elderly, it can be intimidating, and even if they’re able to make the trip, there’s no guarantee they can find an appointment.

The city’s map of vaccine providers shows such zones in parts of Philadelphia’s northwest, northeast, and western neighborhoods, too.

“We acknowledge that there are areas where more clinics could be placed,” said James Garrow, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia health department, “and South Philly is one of those areas.”

» READ MORE: COVID-19 vaccine allocation creates ‘vaccine deserts’ in parts of Philly

— Jason Laughlin

After slowdowns caused by winter storms that hit much of the country last month, the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations has increased in the United States

The country is now averaging more than 2 million vaccinations a day over the past seven days, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s well ahead of the goal of 1.5 million vaccine doses a day President Joe Biden set shortly after taking office in January.

Overall, 52.9 million Americans have received at least one vaccine shot, roughly 20% of the country’s eligible population (age 18 or older). Nearly 27 million Americans have received both shots, and are considered fully protected against COVID-19.

Experts theorize that if at least 75% of people in the United States have immunity through infection or inoculation, then the whole population, or herd, will be protected because the virus will not have enough susceptible hosts to keep spreading. How long natural or vaccine immunity lasts is still unclear.

Pennsylvania has administered more than 1.7 million first doses, nearly 16% of the population, and 791,000 second doses. In Philadelphia, which administers its own vaccine doses, over 226,000 residents have received their first shot and over 107,000 have gotten both shots.

Here’s where COVID-19 vaccinations per day stand through Tuesday, according to data from each local health department and the CDC:

» READ MORE: Philly’s FEMA mass COVID-19 vaccination site draws thousands to its official opening

— Rob Tornoe

Reluctance to get vaccinated against COVID-19 has been falling sharply among Americans — except for Republicans — but distrust of the medical system remains an obstacle, especially for Black adults, polls during the pandemic show.

A Civiqs polling found that in February, 55% of Republicans said they would not get vaccinated or were unsure. That reluctance was the highest of any demographic group, and it wasn’t dramatically less than in December.

Asked before the presidential election about whom they trusted to provide reliable vaccine information, 78% of Republicans had faith in then-President Donald Trump, compared with 7% of Democrats, the Harvard analysis found.

To build trust across the board, the Harvard team urged that family physicians — rather than drug companies, politicians, or even leading medical scientists such as the federal government’s Anthony Fauci — should be “at the fore of education and outreach strategies.”

» READ MORE: Vaccine hesitancy is decreasing, polls show, but many Republicans remain wary

— Marie McCullough