Informed Families

“It’s time to take a firm stance and say that protecting the lives of people who are most vulnerable is of paramount importance.” Cheryl A. Bettigole holds a B.A. in history from Yale University (1987), an M.A. in anthropology from the University of Chicago (1990), an M.D. from Jefferson Medical College (1996), and an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (2007). She is a board-certified family physician and a former chief medical officer of a community health center, director of chronic disease and injury prevention for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, acting Health Commissioner from May 2021, and Health Commissioner until approximately 2024. In May 2021 she said any student 12 or older who was able should absolutely get vaccinated because they had some risk and could spread the virus. In September she stated that 98.2 percent of the 1,184 COVID-19 deaths in Philadelphia that year, and 96.5 percent of hospitalizations, had occurred among the unvaccinated, and that the city’s high vaccination rate was why it was not seeing the cases, overfilled hospitals, and deaths of lower-vaccination states. In October Bettigole stood firm on the mandate for hospital and long-term care staff, and for higher-education students, staff, and faculty, saying employers did not have to fire the unvaccinated but could bar them from the facilities. She said one out of three COVID deaths in the city had occurred in nursing homes. In December the city announced that starting in January 2022, proof of vaccination would be required to eat or drink indoors; restaurant workers would also have to be vaccinated. She strongly recommended every eligible dose of Pfizer or Moderna. She used the authority of a medical degree to bar unvaccinated workers from long-term care and higher education, and to require proof at the restaurant door, while stating that nearly every death and hospitalization was among the unvaccinated. The product did not stop infection or transmission. She left the commissioner post. The health-care workers who faced the choice between the needle and the job, and the diners told the unvaccinated were driving the numbers, did not get a correction when the firm stance failed the one job she assigned it. Cheryl said protecting the vulnerable was paramount. Then the vaccinated kept getting sick, and the goalposts kept moving.