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FEMA’s mass vaccine clinic opens today | Morning Newsletter

And, stadium workers eager to return to work now.

    The Morning Newsletter

    Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

Good morning from The Inquirer newsroom.

First: FEMA’s mass clinic opens in Philly today, lifting a weight off.

Then: The coronavirus delayed a day out to the ballgame by a year, leaving stadium workers reeling. Now with stadiums open to some fans, workers feel eager to get back to work.

And: Victims of unemployment fraud in Pa. say they’ve been alarmed to get puzzling tax documents out of left field.

Philly’s first federally-run mass vaccination site opens its doors to the public with military staffing today, and we were on the scene yesterday as prep was underway.

The first steps have not been without logistical problems. But buzzing with activity, the site is up and running with an ambitious push: Bring up to 6,000 shots to city residents a day. To get there, it will be open seven days a week through at least April 30, according to officials.

Even as case counts tick downward in Philly and the state, concerns about vaccine scarcity and the variants spreading at a fast clip are top of mind. Announced by President Joe Biden, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be a bigger part of the concerted effort to get a hold of the coronavirus. That means a much more direct role for the federal government in the vaccination effort.

Read on for the whole story on what to expect of the Philly FEMA vaccine clinic open today.

Now the return of the fans to Philly’s sports centers means stadium and arena workers are happy to get back to work after nearly a full year without it.

The overall economic impact of Flyers, 76ers, and Wings games where fans swell the stands used to be big business, and so often the primary source of income for the ticket takers, security, and cleaners who deliver that iconic day out to the ballgame. When the coronavirus thrust the stadium and arena workers into radically different economic circumstances, they stared down a blank calendar. The fans were gone, and so was the work. Play eventually resumed, but the spectators weren’t going to be back in numbers like these until now.

Some advance field notes: Capped at 3,100, fans are now welcome back at the Wells Fargo Center for Flyers and 76ers games. So far, the Phillies are getting 8,800 fans on opening day.

There aren’t any details on vaccines for workers yet, but the mood is hopeful.

We talked to advocates about what stadium and arena workers are feeling right now.

  1. Where can you get a vaccine in the Philly area if you’re eligible? Use our lookup tool and find out.

  2. Here are the updated coronavirus case numbers, as COVID-19 spreads in the region.

What you need to know today

  1. People who never cashed erroneous unemployment checks are getting tax documents showing that returning their checks did not stop the state from reporting them to the IRS.

  2. A leaked memo appears to suggest that Philly police could be taking stop-and-frisk policing “from the sidewalk to the street.”

  3. What happens to the Berks detention center now that it’s empty?

  4. An unusual pact between competitors forms an era-defining partnership in the name of the vaccine effort.

Through your eyes | #OurPhilly

We love this warm glow. Thanks for sharing, @doublecimagery.

Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we’ll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout-out!

That’s interesting

  1. ⛪ Long live the Friday fish fries.

  2. 🧂 A Rittenhouse bar pivots to bottle shop and perfects delicious biscuits, Craig LaBan writes.

  3. 🥫 Remember that food pantry woman feeding those battling food insecurity from her house we told you about? She’s having a meaningful impact the world over far beyond her corner of it.

Opinions

“In response to pressure from a column I’d published over the weekend about an alarming disparity in COVID-19 vaccine distribution across the suburbs of Philadelphia, state officials on Monday admitted to members of Congress that an error was made and that they would rectify things by immediately sending more doses, U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon told me soon after her call with acting Health Secretary Alison Beam,” columnist Maria Panaritis writes about how our analysis of an alarming vaccine disparity started its own news cycle and elevated a dialogue.

  1. Free community college is a highly effective smokescreen on student debt, like the Affordable Care Act for college debt, teacher Quinn O’Callaghan writes.

  2. Philly desperately needs a public bank that could change the whole conversation about the city’s budget deficit, Vanessa Lowe, co-chair of the POWER Economic Dignity Strategy Team, and Stan Shapiro, vice chair of the Philadelphia Neighborhood Networks, write.

What we’re reading

NBA players are eating a lot of room service on the road, so The Ringer found out how star ballers game out a hotel room-service menu. Carmelo Anthony always starts with a Caesar salad. Classic.

Artist Gary Davis transformed the wartime experience of his dad, Clarence Davis, into a black-and-white illustrated comic book. The 91-year-old South Jersey veteran’s memoir captured his experience as a Black soldier during the Korean conflict. To top it off, Davis turned it into a video too.