Two challengers—Carlos Vega and A. Charles “Chuck” Peruto Jr.—sought Monday evening to tie incumbent Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s progressive policies to rising crime and homicide rates. But Krasner said the COVID-19 pandemic has been “very tough on everybody,” with crime on the rise nationally.

Krasner added that the city would likely be coming out of the pandemic with twice as many cases on the dockets as it had in early 2020, and said that backlog would be a serious challenge for administration of the office.