Philly Fighting COVID, the company's CEO Andrei Doroshin, and the city's leadership all become comedic fodder in a recent episode of the podcast "Scam Goddess."
Philly's vaccine distribution scandal, which received national attention and resulted in the resignation of the city's deputy health commissioner, gets roasted for about 25 minutes in the episode released Tuesday, and it probably deserved more given the embarrassment of the situation at all levels.
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"So Andrei (Doroshin) is a 22-year-old Drexel graduate. He has a degree in psychology from Drexel. Can I just say, psychology, great scam tool. If you really wanna get into the fine art of chicanery ... psychology," Laci Mosley, host of "Scam Goddess," tells the co-host of the episode, Jason Concepcion.
The episode is titled, "The Crazy COVID Vaccine Capper," and it points out other moves Doroshin made, before it was discovered he gave COVID-19 vaccine doses to friends, among other questionable moves, and his company was dropped by Philly as one of its vaccine partners.
Mosley and Concepcion crack up recounting the details of Doroshin laying out his plan to vaccinate Philadelphian's against the coronavirus, a pitch that was made to about a dozen people on the rooftop of an apartment building near Temple University. The hosts indulge in Doroshin's use of Powerpoint to deliver a presentation laden with tech-focused, entrepreneurial language – he even invoked Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – that the company had no chance of living up to.
"These are buzzwords. The only thing that he left out was the black turtleneck," Mosley says, a reference to the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
And the very Philly-flavored icing Doroshin's want to spread to coverup all the imperfections of his overdone cake: a marketing plan that enlisted Meek Mill to encourage people to get their shots.
"If you're in Philly, you got to have Meek," Concepcion says.
Mosely responds with a take on the lyrics to Mill's "Dreams and Nightmares"
"Hold on, wait a minute, y'all thought I was finished. When I got this vaccination, y'all thought it was rented," she rhymes. "OK, now I'm gonna get my shot, 'cause Meek says so ... Meek Mill the No. 1 figure of public health for Philadelphia. I don't know if that's a good or a bad think, y'all. I'm not sure."
"Scam Goddess" pointed to more serious consequences of the Philly Fighting COVID scandal, which included the group suddenly closing coronavirus testing sites in undeserved communities and establishing a for-profit arm of its business that seemed poised to sell personal data collected on its website belonging to people to trying to get tested and vaccinated for COVID-19.
The city of Philadelphia and its residents weren't spared from the jokes either. There is some of the usual stuff about Philly sports fans, but the hosts also agreed that the city's grittiness made it seem like a good "fighter" to put up against the coronavirus.
"Philly Fighting COVID is a very inspiring name to me. If there’s anybody I want to fight COVID, it would be Philly. It feels like a very dangerous, violent city," Mosley says.
Mosley describes her podcast as being "dedicated to fraud and all those who practice it." Other episodes of "Scam Goddess" tells the story of Anna Delvey, the fake German heiress turned Manhattan socialite, and Caroline Calloway, the American social media influencer and a self-proclaimed "scammer."
The podcast began in 2019, and it also can be streamed on Spotify.
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