A 71-year-old South Jersey man was indicted Wednesday on a first-degree murder charge for allegedly strangling his 40-year-old daughter in June, the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Dennis J. Hall of Franklin Township faces a maximum of life in prison if he is convicted.
On June 11 around 6:15 a.m., Franklin Township police responded to a home on East Avenue after Hall allegedly called 911 to report that his daughter, Devin Hall, was not breathing and that he had strangled her, the prosecutor’s office said.
Dennis Hall was arrested at the scene. A public defender representing Hall could not be reached for comment.
Police attempted lifesaving measures on the 40-year-old woman, who was then transported to a hospital. She was removed from life support the next day and pronounced dead.
The Gloucester/Salem/Cumberland Regional Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy and determined that cause of death was asphyxiation, and the manner of death was homicide.
Devin Hall’s online obituary described her as “a special daughter who endured many challenges and struggles during her life on this earth. She was an inspiration to others, and she touched many with her beauty, gentle kindness, and innocent presence.”
The obituary said she had traveled to 32 states and loved music, especially Toby Keith. Besides many family members, Devin Hall left behind one dog and four cats, the obituary said.
Her mother, Jan Hall, told 6abc that she was born with multiple disabilities, used a wheelchair, and did not speak.
Jan Hall said Dennis Hall, her husband, awakened her and allegedly said he had strangled their daughter.
In June, the prosecutor’s office said that a witness, who was not identified, was awakened by Dennis Hall, who told the witness that he had strangled his daughter.
MIAMI — Social media influencer Tristan Tate took the witness stand in federal court on Thursday and said he and his brother Andrew can’t adequately defend themselves from criminal sex charges if they have to remain in a Miami jail while fighting extradition to the United Kingdom.
Lawyers for the Tates are asking a judge to allow them to be freed from custody at least until an extradition hearing can be held on their U.K. rape and trafficking charges. They have remained in a federal detention center in Miami since they were arrested July 18.
Prosecutors say Tates bragged about wealth and multiple passports
Prosecutors said they appear to have money and have bragged about multiple passports. Their attorneys argued that their high profile and active social media presence make it nearly impossible for them to flee, and they have shown they won’t run through cooperating in a separate sex crime case in Romania.
The Tates have become among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities by promoting wealth, male dominance, and misogyny through their social media empire.
Andrew Tate, 39, has said women who are sexually assaulted should bear some responsibility for the attacks and shared graphic descriptions of how he might attack women. Tristan Tate, 38, has worked with his brother on multiple businesses, including the production of online webcam pornography.
No date for an extradition hearing has been set. The U.K. has until mid-September to provide evidence to the State Department.
Tristan Tate says he needs to be out of jail to prove his innocence
On his way into court Thursday, defense attorney Joseph McBride told reporters he hasn’t heard of a case where U.S. Magistrate Lauren Louis has allowed someone out on bail while awaiting an extradition hearing.
But while the odds aren’t in their favor, McBride felt like the truth was. He called them innocent, good men who have never run from the law.
In court, Tristan Tate was called to the stand Thursday and said he can’t prove he is innocent if he is kept in jail.
“I need to clear my name. I need to take part in these proceedings, I can’t do that from the secure housing unit,” he said.
Tristan Tate also complained of conditions at the Miami jail. He said there are ants and the only toilet in his cell is where anyone walking by can see him. He said he has lost 14 pounds eating mostly junk food in the nearly six weeks he has been in custody.
The brothers were wearing tan prison clothes and shackled for Thursday’s hearing.
Defense lawyers say the brothers have complied in Romania case
Their lawyers said the U.K.’s request was out of line because their criminal case in Romania is going first. Romanian officials have let them remain free until the proceedings conclude and they have not tried to flee and are complying with all court restrictions.
The judge reminded defense attorneys she has to follow U.S. laws.
Attorneys for the Tates said they largely exaggerated their claims of wealth to boost their social media personas, their claims of multiple passports were satirical and a “$50 million superyacht” featured in one of the brothers’ videos does not actually belong to them. The expensive luxury cars, including a $2.1 million Aston Martin, that were featured in other videos were rented, the defense says.
The brothers have long claimed that their violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.
“That is not the real Andrew Tate, the person Andrew Tate,” said his lawyer Howard Srebnick, who in court Thursday compared Tate on social media to Sacha Baron Cohen’s confrontational Ali G character.
The former professional kickboxers, who have dual U.S. and U.K. citizenship, have millions of social media followers and are vocal supporters of President Donald Trump. The White House has said the brothers shouldn’t expect any help from the president.
Women in sun hats and men in baseball caps lugged suitcases and scurried up a ramp to board a hulking Norwegian Cruise Line Jewel ship Thursday afternoon. Moments later, thunder cracked, rain drizzled, and lightning lit up the Delaware River.
The passengers on Norwegian’s inaugural voyage out of its new permanent terminal at PhilaPort likely could not get out of the Philly region soon enough. They were headed to sunny Bermuda.
The opening of the $66 million terminal in Tinicum Township, Delaware County, followed Norwegian Cruise Line’s return to the Philadelphia area earlier this year, making it the first cruise line to sail from the region in more than 15 years and marking the return of the industry to the region.
Dan Farkas, EVP & General Counsel with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, speaks on the opening of a new terminal for PhilaPort Cruise Terminal on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Philadelphia.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
The seven-year partnership between PhilaPort and Norwegian will avail residents to journeys to various cruise destinations without having to travel to New York, Boston, or Miami, where Norwegian’s other East Coast ports are based.
The Jewel will make voyages to Bermuda until Sept. 26, and the Pearl will arrive in November, offering five-day to 14-day trips to Bermuda, the Caribbean, Bahamas, Canada, and New England through April 2028. In summer 2028, Norwegian will offer seven-day Bermuda and Atlantic Coast voyages aboard its Gem ship.
The return of the cruise industry to the area is anticipated to contribute around 2,200 new jobs and generate about $300 million in local economic activity annually, said Dan Farkas, executive vice president of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
“It benefits all. It’s benefiting the local hotels, the restaurants, the transportation providers, as well as the many vendors that provision the ships,” Farkas said at Thursday’s new terminal unveiling, before marking the celebration by enjoying a tiny cheesesteak hors d’oeuvre.
The Norwegian Jewel Cruise ship at the new PhilaPort Cruise Terminal on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Philadelphia.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
The cruise industry evacuated the Philly region about 15 years ago as the ships companies were running outgrew the Navy Yard port, said PhilaPort spokesperson Sean Mahoney. About four years ago, Norwegian approached the port about sailing out of the region again, Mahoney said, but a series of obstacles related to siting, land ownership, and permits cropped up.
“There were times when it did not seem possible,” Pearson said. “But the PhilaPort board and staff pushed against the naysayers and the frozen river and, with the help of our partners, we got this thing done.”
At Thursday’s celebration, Norwegian presented a $20,000 check to Tinicum Township’s fire department and a $30,000 check to the Boys and Girls Clubs to benefit three local branches. The donations were part of the company’s Sail and Sustain program, aimed to benefit the communities where it runs services.
As the final stragglers boarded the ship to Bermuda, they enjoyed a quintessentially Philly send-off — being serenaded by a Mummers band in an unpredictable and muggy rainstorm.
Artificial-intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic, along with more than 100 other tech and financial services organizations, warned that businesses and governments must do more to prepare for and defend against AI-enabled hacks.
In an open letter Thursday, the AI start-ups, along with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp., and others, called for organizations, governments, and technology and AI companies to focus on making cyber defense “an immediate leadership priority” and to fix existing weaknesses in their own software.
The letter also asks cybersecurity companies to help defend against “AI-enabled attacks” and says governments should coordinate communication between themselves and industry channels to respond to potential threats. It also urges leading AI companies to give AI access, as well as financial support and training, to those that defend critical infrastructure.
The letter comes after several recent cybersecurity breaches involving advanced AI models, including an incident in July in which models from OpenAI inadvertently hacked Hugging Face Inc. The breaches have ignited concerns about AI agents running amok, and prompted some technology and government leaders to renew calls for curbs on the technology. On Wednesday, OpenAI said in a report that it could have reacted sooner to prevent the hack on Hugging Face.
The letter’s signatories predicted that AI models will be used to carry out a growing number of increasingly complicated cyberattacks in the months ahead, as companies continue to build AI models that are capable at both defending against and carrying out such acts.
“Today’s AI advances are already giving defenders new ways to fix weaknesses that have accumulated for years,” the letter states. “If we act decisively, we can use the defenders’ window to make our digital world much more secure.”
TOKYO — Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who splashed her signature polka dots on paintings, sculptures and museum installations around the world, has died, her studio said Thursday. She was 97.
Kusama died Aug. 14 at a hospital in Tokyo, Yayoi Kusama Studio said, without specifying the cause of death.
“She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul,” the studio’s statement said. “We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”
Kusama, one of Japan’s most respected contemporary artists, was widely exhibited around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Museum Ludwig in Germany.
Repetitive motifs were her trademark, in various shapes, resembling netting, swirls or worms, but most often dots, dancing proudly on her canvases, or as sparkling balls or dots of light in her installations, in all their vibrant psychedelic glory.
“Polka dots are fabulous,” Kusama said in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, appearing in her signature orange bob wig and polka dot attire.
“I want to create a thousand paintings, maybe two thousand paintings, as many as I can draw,” she said in her childlike but matter-of-fact tone. “I will keep painting until I die.”
Pursuing her vision of art over a lifetime
Kusama insisted she drew the way she saw the world: covered with spots, part of the hallucinations she said she had from childhood. She was in and out of psychiatric institution for decades, although her sickness did not hold her back as she was one of the first Japanese women to go to New York to pursue her art, in 1957.
Although soft-spoken and shy in her mannerisms, Kusama was always unabashedly bold in the assertion of her dotty vision, not only in sticking to the style for decades but also in making it accessible to the masses.
In her later years, as the times caught up with her art, she enjoyed fame. She signed on with fashion brands like Louis Vuitton as well as other licensed products like teacups, T-shirts and key chains with her illustrations, including replicas of her likeness that were used in show windows and other marketing.
In 2008, Christie’s auctioned her work for $5.8 million. In 2016, she won the most prestigious award Japan gives its artists, the Order of Culture.
Upon receiving the award, she told reporters she was more determined than ever to pursue her art, stressing that the sincerity and devotion she had demonstrated in her personal life were crucial parts of her artistic legacy.
“I feel there is little left in my life, but I am now still fighting to the death for my art,” she said. “I am giving all I have so that many people will continue to be interested in my art, even after I am dead.”
Categories were not enough to represent her art
Kusama was called pop, avant-garde, feminist, just to name some of the categories thrown at her, most of which Kusama brushed off as not quite representative of her art.
She was born in a middle-class family but felt misunderstood, as her parents wanted her to simply get married. They wanted to buy her kimono, not paints and brushes. She knew she had to get away. She chose America.
When she arrived in New York, the fad was “action painting,” characterized by dribbles, swooshes and smears, not dots. She suffered years of poverty and obscurity. But she kept painting dots.
She put circles of paper on people’s bodies, and once a horse, in “happening” anti-war performances in the late 1960s, which got some people arrested for obscenity but helped get media attention for her art. While in New York, she befriended artists like Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe and Joseph Cornell, who praised her innovative style.
Over the years, Kusama made quirky but stunningly celebratory works like “Macaroni Girl,” a female figure plastered with macaroni, which expresses the fear of food; “The Visionary Flowers,” giant sculptures of twisting tulips, and “Mirrored Corridor,” a room with mirrors that delivers an illusion of a field of phallic protrusions speckled with dots.
Kusama, who has also made films and published several novels, said she wasn’t sure where she got her ideas. She just picked up her brush and started drawing. The process was so mysterious sometimes she surprised herself, she told AP.
“I think, ‘Oh, I drew that? I was thinking that,’” she said.
But she appeared happy to have her art be the focus of media attention and praise, reading one of her poems to a reporter or tackling her artworks with gusto for photos.
But she was also a charmingly disarming mix of vulnerability and defiance, at one moment declaring herself “an artistic revolutionary,” and then the next, mumbling: “I am so afraid, all the time, of everything.”
Fans around the world share messages of loss
The news of her death was met with an outpouring of sadness from around the world, including museums that had exhibited her works.
Fans and artists alike praised her courageous persistence in vowing to continue creating art that, she said, will be recognized thousands of years after her death.
Messages recognizing her death were sent from people throughout Japan including Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike and Yoshitomo Nara, a younger Japanese artist who has exhibited widely abroad.
“RIP Kusama-sensei,” Nara wrote on his X account, respectfully calling her a teacher in Japanese.
A judge has denied a Cheltenham resident’s injunction request over allegations that the township violated public bidding rules to build a multimillion-dollar public pool complex.
Sam Thacker filed for an injunction to halt the controversial project in July, alleging that the township had violated public bidding rules by taking 2.7 acres from a private developer for free and leasing the land back for $10 per year for that developer to build a pool complex for up to $4.5 million.
The pool would be part of a larger development of the former Melrose Country Club that includes townhouses, a medical center, and commercial space.
The written denial Judge James Bucci issued Wednesday did not include his reasoning, but Thacker said he recalled the judge saying in court that he rejected the injunction because Thacker did not have standing to sue.
“I’m extremely disappointed,” said Thacker, 41, who is representing himself in the case. “Taking off of work is really burdensome.”
He plans to appeal.
“I feel very strongly that going to trial, I will win,” Thacker said.
He had hoped an emergency injunction would stop the project before the township’s deadline to approve a final plan for the pool project at the end of this month under the terms of the ground lease.
“We are pleased with the court’s rulings … based on the plaintiff’s lack of standing and on a number of additional substantive grounds,” Cheltenham’s commissioners said in a statement Thursday. “We remain focused on securing a modern, accessible pool and pool house within a fiscally responsible budget.”
In court filings, Cheltenham has pointed to financial assessments for other township projects, such as renovations to Conklin Pool — which the Melrose pool is replacing — as evidence that the township has satisfied the exception to bidding requirements.
Christopher McCabe, a construction and public contracts lawyer who has been following the case but is not involved in the litigation, said he was surprised by the result.
“There’s a long line of cases saying the taxpayer has standing to challenge an irregularity in the bidding process,” McCabe said.
And although Melrose Pool LLC is building the public pool under the terms of the ground lease with the township, “the lease is nothing more than a contract for construction of a public work disguised as a lease,” the lawyer added.
“The whole transaction has the appearance of collusion, impropriety, and favoritism, which is what the public bidding laws are designed to prevent.”
Although some Cheltenham residents have said they are happy at the prospect of a new pool, the larger Melrose project has also drawn scrutiny.
A unanimous letter from the township’s planning commission dated July 27 expressed strong disapproval of changes to the project that eliminated a planned community center and some retail space, calling the alterations “a huge surprise.”
“We cannot emphasize enough how poor these modifications are,” the five members wrote. “The Planning Commission does not support this development in its current configuration.”
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Sheri Herman, 71, formerly of Philadelphia, pioneering internet and cable TV executive, former senior vice president of content and business development for E! Entertainment Television, former president of internet startup American Cybercast, founder of SLH Communications, tech prophet, and dancer, died Thursday, Aug. 6, of heart failure at her home in Telogia, Fla., about 35 miles west of Tallahassee.
A magna cum laude communications graduate at Temple University, Ms. Herman went to New York after college to produce commercials for an ad agency. Over the next 27 years, she relocated to Denver and Los Angeles, successfully marketed, programmed, and developed dozens of TV networks and online companies, and pioneered the integration of TV and the emerging internet.
She was “mesmerized” by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, her sister, Nadine, said, and predicted in the 1970s that one personal device would eventually take pictures, send messages, stream content, and still make phone calls. Jarl Mohn, former president and chief executive officer at E!, called Ms. Herman “a pioneer in incorporating new technologies and branding in entertainment.”
He said: “She also brought passion and conviction to everything she worked on.”
Ms. Herman founded her own firm, SLH Communications, in 1999. Courtesy of the family
Ms. Herman helped turn the startup Movietime channel into E! Entertainment Television in 1990 and told the Los Angeles Times: “We’re going to totally reposition the network. You won’t recognize us.” Over the next few years, E! grew its subscriber base from two million to 55 million, and Ms. Herman won industry awards for her marketing campaigns.
At American Cybercast, she championed The Spot, a groundbreaking interactiveonline reality show, in 1995, and told the Los Angeles Times in 1996: “We’re creating a new medium, but we’re kind of a cross between publishing and broadcasting in that we’re going to be advertising driven. If we were a movie studio, we’d be Miramax with a little more edge.”
Russell Collins, founder of American Cybercast, said: “Sheri Herman was nothing if not fearless. Her determination was boundless and fierce.”
Ms. Herman was especially effective at fundraising for projects and combining online content with ads and product placement. She trailblazed new internet publishing formats that included text, photos, and videos, and predicted the collision of TV and internet content. In 1996, she told Variety: “Eyeballs will move from TV to PC.”
Ms. Herman (left) oversaw the development of the Discovery Channel, the Fashion Channel, QVC, and other networks.Courtesy of the family
As director of programming for the United Cable Television Corp. in the mid-1980s, Ms. Herman collaborated with dozens of networks and oversaw the development of the Discovery Channel, the Fashion Channel, QVC, and other networks.
As senior vice president of programming and production for the Access Entertainment Network in the late 1990s, she reintroduced popular music videos and, according to Variety in 1998, gained six million subscribers in the network’s first three months of existence.
Shefounded her own firm, SLH Communications, in 1999 and contracted with TV Guide, Barnes & Noble, Hilton Hotels, musicians Quincy Jones and Jon Bon Jovi, and other entertainers and businesses. In New York, in the 1980s, she worked with cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder.
Temple officials noted her “influential career” in a tribute, and longtime friend and colleague Martin Lewis said: “She had a relentless thirst for charting new paths forward. She proselytized new media, new approaches, new everything.”
Ms. Herman (right) enjoyed time with her family.Courtesy of the family
In 2007, Ms. Herman reduced her daily responsibilities after being seriously injured in an auto accident in California. She moved to Florida in 2021.
Lewis said: “She was inventive, creative, exhilarating.”
Sheri Lynn Herman was born May 21, 1955, in Philadelphia. She grew up in Overbrook Park with her parents and older sister, and graduated from Philadelphia High School for Girls.
Her family featured several singers, and she spent many holidays singing songs and playing guitar around the piano at her grandparents’ home in Wynnefield. She loved music, studied ballet when she was young, and performed later with the Janosik Polish Dance Ensemble.
Ms. Herman was a magna cum laude communications graduate at Temple University.Courtesy of the family
Stylish and social, Ms. Herman enjoyed traveling and entertaining. She was a skilled seamstress who made her own clothes, an accomplished chef, and adept at interior decorating. She doted on her cats and dogs.
She married and divorced twice, and, after Philadelphia, lived in New York, Denver, and Los Angeles before Florida. Her sister said: “She was brilliant.”
In addition to her sister, Ms. Herman is survived by other relatives.
A celebration of her life is to be held later. Family, friends, and colleagues can connect at www.SheriHerman.com.
After months of speculation, Temple coach K.C. Keeler said on Thursday that transfer quarterbacks Ajani Sheppard and Jaxon Smolik could both play against Rhode Island in their season opener on Sept. 5.
“I could see us playing two. … I still don’t think anyone has really separated themselves,” said Keeler. “The nice thing is they both have a little bit different skill set, and [offensive coordinator] Tyler [Walker] did a phenomenal job running two quarterbacks at Montana State. I think we’re trying to let it all unfold and take as much time as possible, but I’m not going to force it.”
The competition between Smolik and Sheppard started when the two pledged their commitments to the Owls this past offseason. Smolik transferred from Penn State, and Sheppard came over from Washington State, where he had transferred to the previous offseason, but never saw the field there due to injury.
They have played in a combined nine college games and attempted a combined two passes in their careers.
Keeler still seems intent on naming a starter at some point in the season.Last season he didn’t name Evan Simon the starter until after the Owls’ Week 2 win over Howard.
“I’m not saying we’re going to play two all year,” said Keeler. “I don’t want to have a mindset where it’s only going to be one quarterback and backup. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting close to figuring it out. And we will probably have an idea of what that first play looks like [against Rhode Island].”
Peter Clarke, Dante Atton, Colin Chase, Eric Stuart, Grayson Mains, Saboor Karriem, and Sam Brown were nominated by their teammates and members of the program to wear single digits during the 2026 season. It’s the program’s highest honor.
“It’s so exciting, and it was so cool calling their names out and seeing how their teammates reacted,” said Keeler. “It’s so great having guys like that [the single digits] that take on all that responsibility, so it’s a really good group. We’re really pleased with the leadership they’ve given us, and I think they feel very honored because of how stringent the process was.”
Mains, Clarke, Brown, Karriem, and Stuart were first-time selectees, while Atton and Chase held their designations from last season.
Jennifer Rivera, who has served on the school board for eight months, tendered her resignation from the board effective Tuesday, Amy Buckman, spokesperson for the Lower Merion School District, confirmed in an email Wednesday.
The board will vote on accepting the resignation at a special meeting Sept. 14.
Rivera could not immediately be reached for comment.
Rivera has been charged with theft, receiving stolen property, and related crimes in relation to funds she is accused of stealing from SMB Team, a Bala Cynwyd-based marketing agency that works with law firms.
An affidavit of probable cause for Rivera’s arrest said she used more than $25,000 in company funds to pay for airline travel and family vacations. Rivera also allegedly used SMB funds to pay a coworker to film a friend’s son’s bar mitzvah. Rivera used the company credit card to fly the same coworker and his wife to another employee’s wedding, where he was hired to be a photographer, according to the affidavit.
She was released on $25,000 unsecured bail and is scheduled to appear before a district judge for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 2.
Rivera also sits on the board of directorsof the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, a Norristown-based educational service agency that supports local schools. Margaret Wright, Montgomery County Intermediate Unit board president, did not immediately respond to questions about whether Rivera was still serving on the board; however, Rivera’s name and photo were pulled from the intermediate unit’s website after a reporter’s inquiry.
In an announcement Thursday, the Lower Merion School District encouraged “qualified candidates with a strong commitment to public education” to apply for the vacancy.
Candidates must be 18 years or older, residents of Lower Merion or Narberth, and have lived in the school district for at least a year. They cannot be an employee of the district. Those interested in serving on the board are asked to submit application materials by Sept. 9. The school board will invite “highly qualified candidates” to participate in public interviews during a special meeting on Sept. 22.
The selected board member will serve until Dec. 5, 2027. The remaining years of the term will be filled by the winning candidate of the November 2027 municipal election.
This story has been updated with additional information on the process for filling a school board vacancy.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Families with kids in tow lined up Thursday at Benjamin Franklin High School for a one-stop shop: physicals, mental health services, vision screenings, and, perhaps most important, vaccines.
The Philadelphia School District is making a full-court press to get its vaccination rates up, amid a statewide measles outbreak and news that some city schools saw double-digit declines in kindergarten immunization rates in the 2025-26 school year — leaving communities vulnerable to further measles spread.
Kids must be healthy to learn, said Kendra McDow, a pediatrician and the district’s medical director, and vaccines against diseases like measles, whooping cough, and chickenpox are crucial protection.
“In 2026, these diseases are very real threats to the health of children and communities,” McDow said. “We are seeing in real time the tragic consequences of children and adolescents not getting vaccinated.”
Medical Officer Kendra McDow speaks during press conference encouraging vaccinations for Philadelphia kids on Thursday at Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia.Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer
To achieve community protection, which scientists call herd immunity, 95% of a school population must be vaccinated. And though Philadelphia’s vaccination rates remain relatively strong compared with other pockets of the state, about 40% of kindergarten classrooms across Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs became vulnerable to a measles outbreak last school year, up from a third of classrooms the year prior, according to an Inquirer analysis of state data.
To boost city immunization rates, the district is focusing on access — from a back-to-school bus tour this summer that came with a side of childhood vaccines to the Benjamin Franklin eventover two weeks, which runs through Friday.
Parents can register their children at the district’s Constance E. Clayton Education Center, at 440 N. Broad St., then walk up the block to Ben Franklin, at 550 N. Broad, to get their children vaccines and other preventive healthcare, including connection to mental health services and appointments to get eyeglasses.
Measles is now in 28 Pennsylvania counties, with more than 400 cases reported this year — nearly half in the last month. No cases have been reported in Philadelphia, but the highly contagious disease is circulating in suburban Chester County.
Pennsylvania had the most newly reported measles cases in the nation last week, said Ala Stanford, founder of the Black Doctors Consortium, and 73 state residents have been hospitalized.
Pennsylvania now has the highest number of cases reported in the state since 1991.
“This is not a mystery. It’s arithmetic,” Stanford said. “It takes 95% of us vaccinated to stop measles from moving through a community. Pennsylvania is at about 93%, and not one county in this region is at 95%.”
What parents need to remember, Stanford said, is that since children traditionally have not received their first measles vaccine until age 1, “every infant in the city, in the stroller, in the car seat, at the family reunion has no protection of their own. We are their protection. That is the entire system.”
In response to the current outbreak, state officials have started recommending that parents in affected areas vaccinate children as early as 6 months with a “zero dose” to provide extra protection against a disease so contagious that it will infect nine in 10 unvaccinated people who are exposed.
The benefits of community protection go beyond babies and children, Stanford said: “It’s the teacher. The lunchroom lady, the man who sweeps the floor, the security officer at the door — you do not know who they go home to at night. You do not know who is on chemotherapy, who has had a transplant, who is caring for a newborn.”
Video: Philly schools recommend vaccinations for students
‘Why so many?’
School officials plan to set up individual vaccine clinics at schools that have problematic compliance rates.
Emlen Elementary in Mount Airy, for instance, had a 100% vaccination compliance rate among incoming kindergarteners two years ago. Last year, it dropped to 80%. (Many Emlen families citedphilosophical or religious exemptions to vaccination.)
Ericka Hayes, senior medical director of infection prevention at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said rampant misinformation about vaccine safety certainly contributed to lower vaccination rates.
“Parents should not let that sway them from giving their children one of the most tested and effective childhood interventions in history,” Hayes said.
Disruptions from the pandemic are another factor in lagging vaccine rates, Stanford said.
Dr. Ala Stanford of the Black Doctors consortium speaks during press conference encouraging vaccinations for Philadelphia kids on Thursday at Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia.Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer
At a recent clinic at Strawberry Mansion High, Stanford said, children from 30 schools across the city showed up for shots.
“We had 14- year-olds getting four shots, and we said, ‘Why so many?’” Stanford said. Families told care providers that they had fallen off on vaccine schedules, but were relieved to have a chance to catch up their children.
As word spreads about vaccine access, about ease and availability across the city, “more people show up,” Stanford said.
Kids can be excluded for vaccine noncompliance
Children can be excluded from school under Pennsylvania law if they are unvaccinated and their families have not formally filed for an exemption on religious or philosophical grounds.
According to state data, thePhiladelphia School District excluded 34 12th graders, five seventh graders, and three kindergartners last school year for vaccine noncompliance.
Far more students were labeled “noncompliant and attending” — 1,392 12th graders, 1,853 seventh graders, and 669 kindergartners. That means those students’ families have made a plan for them to get vaccinated, but have not yet followed up on it.
Students without vaccine exemptions can be admitted to kindergarten on a provisional basis as long as they have a plan to catch up on their vaccines. (State law allows exceptions for students living in foster care or without permanent housing.) They are listed as “non-complaint but attending” when families fail to adhere to that plan.
School officials have said they work with families in that category to help them catch up on shots, but unvaccinated kids may be asked to stay home if a communicable disease is identified at their school.
School nurses are key to the effort, officials said, on the front lines of ensuring students are vaccine-compliant. Every school in the district currently has a full-time school nurse, McDow said.
One of the district’s 277 school nurse positions is unfilled, but an agency nurse is covering that vacancy, and “we are working to have the position filled as soon as possible,” McDow said.
The act of getting vaccinated or vaccinating your children, said James Garrow, deputy commissioner of the city health department, is powerful.
“Your vaccination can help save lives,” Garrow said.
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