If a Covid vaccination card counts as an official document, then faking a card should count as forgery and attract a suitable penalty?

As a vaccination card indicates an increased level of protection and reduced chance of spreading the virus, selling or buying and using a fake should be considered a serious offence.

In the UK, presenting a forged vaccine document at an airport or somewhere similar is fraud by false representation and carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Numerous people have been charged with using fake certificates, though I've not found anything on the sentences they actually received...

At least one of them got off quite lightly if that's the maximum.

She was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment, suspended for twelve months and ordered to perform 60 hours community service and pay £85 costs and a £128 victim surcharge.

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9580003/Egyptian-doctor-36-tried-board-flight-Heathrow-using-forged-certificates-avoids-jail.html

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9580003/Egyptian-doctor-36-tried-board-flight-Heathrow-using-forged-certificates-avoids-jail.html

That's not that light. You wouldn't expect to serve the maximum sentence for a first offence of anything but the most serious crimes. So getting a supsended sentence and community service is much more serious than a fine.

I don't think we want to fill our prisons up with people presenting fake vaccine certifiates. Plus it's not fair on the other prisoners who have had their vaccines...

Chances are she'll get struck-off for that.

Aggravated manslaughter charges work for me.

It's a felony in the US, it can get you 5 years.

https://www.ic3.gov/media/y2021/psa210330

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1017

I wish they'd actually go after them. Not because of the prison time, as far as I'm concerned they can give them probation for the first offense, but because if you've got a felony in the US you don't get to ever touch a gun again, and these asshats would probably hate losing their gun rights more than they'd hate prison time.

an idiot and their money...

And they'll get everything they deserve if they die or develop long term complications from Covid... Far more likely than any vaccine side effect.

If only we could literally brand them so, our valiant healthcare workers could deny them care for their wilful ignorance and danger to children and people with immune disorders.

" 30.4 per cent of the world has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 15.8 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated "

So the bulk of the world's population is still maximally exposed. Furthermore, on the BBC news this morning it was reported that "booster doses" of different vaccines from those first provided are being considered for those already vaccinated, essentially in order to keep ahead of mutations. In reality, we haven't got Covid under control yet by a long stretch.

The worldwide vaccination program is pretty low, some countries are pushing up these stats such as Canada which is now vaccinating under 18s who are low risk, yet there are many poor countries who haven't even got their most vulnerable vaccinated yet.

We won't get COVID under any sort of control until there is a more worldwide response to the pandemic than a us first approach to vaccinations.

I'm no epidemiologist, and I would be very happy to be corrected... but it has struck me since the vaccinations started that it might be a better idea to, rather than starting by vaccinating the most vulnerable, to have vaccinated first those who are going to ignore the precautions and move around spreading the bloody virus anyway...

After the obvious of health workers, care workers, and other essential services of course.

I wonder how one would go about modelling such a protocol?

(I write as one who is in multiple high risk groups, and who has been double vaccinated).

I'm sure I heard that one country was doing exactly that but not seen any reporting since. I wonder how it's going?

but it has struck me since the vaccinations started that it might be a better idea to, rather than starting by vaccinating the most vulnerable, to have vaccinated first those who are going to ignore the precautions and move around spreading the bloody virus anyway...

Nice idea, but unfortunately they tend to be the ones who refuse the vaccine and buy fake certificates...so take-up wouldn't be very high.

>Nice idea, but unfortunately they tend to be the ones who refuse the vaccine

I think the point was that after vaccinating the oldest most vulnerable, instead of then doing over 65s, then over 60s etc in strict order - it might have been better to switch to vaccinating 20year olds who mix with more people.

Should probably also have considered bus drivers, fast food workers who come into contact with more people before doing all the purely admin and lab workers in hospitals who were a priority

Well, IIRC they did talk about something like this, but the problem they found was that there was no simple record of who did what job. So...how would you decide who gets priority? By the time they'd polled the hundreds of thousands of companies who work in those sensitive fields (and missing out the people who were self employed or otherwise forgotten about) they could have vaccinated half the country.

Well you wouldn't need to poll for them. Just publicise that those in certain settings can present evidence of such to get priority at one of the vaccination centres.

IANAE either, but it seems to me that while this method might potentially work to shorten the pandemic duration (assuming, as pointed out by AC, that those people would actually TAKE the vaccine); it would likely simultaneously lead to more serious cases and deaths in the early days. This would cause a higher load on the healthcare sector, leading to further knock-on effects on non-COVID related care. Vaccinating the people susceptible to catching a bad case of the disease first is as I interpret it a measure to try to minimize the infamous hump at the start of each wave. Many of the people you're talking about prioritizing are younger and therefore less likely to get seriously ill from the disease.

That said, I think it's crucial that we as a society evaluate different models as we come out of the panic surrounding this. Given that so many countries have made so many different decisions regarding quarantines, travel bans, masks, lockdowns, no visitors at care facilities, etc; we should have plenty of data to look at when preparing for the next pandemic. Where ma' data scientists at?

"Many of the people you're talking about prioritizing are younger and therefore less likely to get seriously ill from the disease."

Although they would be less likely to become seriously ill themselves those they infected might not be so fortunate..

Standard procedure is generally to vaccinate vectors: those who have the most contact (healthcare, teachers, public service, etc.) with the most vulnerable groups. However, due to the extremely high efficacy of the mRNA and vector vaccines, it was decided to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups directly. This was a moral rather than a clinical decision, ie. it was decided to attempt to save lives directly rather than attempting to limit the spread.

El Reg / Thomas,

Any reason you used the world in data site, and not the WHO?

They have:

Globally, as of 6:39pm CEST, 11 August 2021, there have been 203,944,144 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4,312,902 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 11 August 2021, a total of 4,394,596,684 vaccine doses have been administered.

which seems pretty consistent with the our world in data figures, to be fair.

Just wondering, really.

"Any reason you used the world in data site, and not the WHO?"

Our world in data do a really good of job of clearly presenting information - something that a time-pressed journalist would appreciate I imagine. They also do a lot of fact checking on it.

As for their source? For vaccine data they cite either the actual country's official data (which will also be going to the WHO, so same data) or for some nations they cite ... the WHO. So it's basically data from the same sources.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations#source-information-country-by-country

Thanks

Several studies have already come out that a booster doesn't increase immunity in the fully vaccinated, except in the immunocompromised. That's more of a "we must do something, and this is something" knee-jerk response by politicians and the public, as comforting as it is to think that each booster actually boosts immunity.

It will take a whole new "Mark II" series of vaccines to actually keep ahead of variants, though the current ones are far, far better than nothing despite that.

"So the bulk of the world's population is still maximally exposed"

And will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Even without a considerable amount of people opting to not vaccinate themselves, the simple logistics of producing enough vaccines for around 6 billion+ people * is simply beyond the realms of current production / distribution / delivery facilities. Beyond the logistics there's also the economics, with the world's poorest (and most populous) countries still unable to secure much in the way of supplies.

That's even not taking into account that the vaccine is not kown / thought to be effective beyond a few months**, and so in a few months every person already vaccinated might need to have it again. Given that it won't be a couple-of-shots-for-life as many other vaccines, and more of a sasonal one like the influenza vaccine means that it's a pipe dream to think that anywhere close to a bulk of the world population will all be vaccinated at the same time.

According to me a more effective strategy is for people to get a better diet, healthier lifestyle and lots of vitamins C and D to build up a strong imune system (which then helps protect against a whole bunch of physical and mental illnesses, not just covid).

* excluding the approx 1 billion young children and others who can't be vaccinated

**since they're less than a year old in 'production' environment, it's impossible to know for sure just yet

> ...to build up a strong imune system...

There is only one way to do this for a virus your body never met, it is called vaccination.

No. You could also survive infection from the virus. And since 98%+ of the people who get it survive it, well, there you go.

> And since 98%+ of the people who get it survive it, well, there you go.

And what would be the percentage for vaccinated people?

Around 99.96%

"98% survive"...

So, you're clearly happy with letting 2% of the world population die.

Then, you didn't mention "Long COVID", the people left with long term disabilities.

Then, you're assuming that 98% figure will continue to hold. Look at India for what happens if the healthcare systems get overwhelmed, people who should survive die due to lack of treatment.

Also note that having COVID may not give you long term protection against getting COVID again. Especially with variants developing. So more people may die or become disabled the second time they get it.

"So, you're clearly happy with letting 2% of the world population die."

That wasn't my call, that's how Mother Nature rolled the dice this time. Thankfully it was only 2% and not 20%.

"There is only one way to do this for a virus your body never met, it is called vaccination"

No, you are completely wrong there. The immune system has 2 distinct parts (OK, oversimplified) -

1 - recognises as threats any new / unknown bugs, and fights them off with quick-response 'light infantry', while building targeting systems to be able to target the invader with heavy artillery

2(a) - recognises previously encountered known bugs

2(b)- quickly and easily fight off previously encountered known bugs by being able to immediately deploy the 'big guns'.

2(a) can be achieved through previously having fought off the same bug, not only from vaccination.

However vaccination (or even previous infection) just helps your body recognise and mobilise. If the whole of your immune system is generally weak, vaccination will not make it stronger. (as an analogy, vaccination or previous infection allows you to specifically target invaders with heavy weaponry without leaving much side-effects on your body, but does nothing for your ability to produce the heavy weaponry to fight off known targets, nor on your ability to produce 'light infantry' to deal with new unknown targets)

It's well known that sedentary lifestyle, modern western diet, many forms of pollution / toxic materials etc can depress the effectiveness of the immune system, while people who exercise regularly, sleep well and eat healtily have a strong immune system.

Relying on vaccination to have a strong immune system is like having an army relying on scouts and spy satellites - very useful to have but not much use on their own if you don't have the arsenal to back it up.

"booster doses" of different vaccines from those first provided are being considered for those already vaccinated, essentially in order to keep ahead of mutations.

Not really. Boosters are being considered for vulnerable groups including the elderly, where it is known that the immune response deteriorates more rapidly over time ( immune dementia ). We simply do not have any data over the long term protection, though work last year suggests that T-cell protection lasts much longer than antibodies, but there is little evidence, thus far, of mutations able to completely overcome vaccination or antibody protection.

The moral aspects may be debatable but goverments are first and foremost responsible to their electorates.

Boosters are scheduled in Cornwall from around second week in September.

Any word from the for-profit company Telegram on whether they are going to take any action on this? Or are they going to keep profiting from something so obviously fraudulent and damaging? Oh well, it's all clicks and ad views isn't it?

Telegram seems to have become the media's favourite whipping boy for this kind of thing, presumably because it supports large groups so well. But it's more than a little naive to think there aren't similar groups on WhatsApp, Facebook, Line, etc.

FWIW Telegram does have a policy of closing groups, though this has so far generally been limited to islamic terrorism and paedophiles. Given that many pro-democracy groups in countries like Russia use it, you can see why it's a little resistant to requests to shut things down.

I'm sure that while they would absolutely like to be arresting everyone handing them out, if most of them are coming in nondescript anonymous envelopes (especially from overseas), they're not very detectable. It's not like you can train a drug dog to alert on a piece of paper, either.

So they can mostly only shutdown storefronts (the same whackamole we know all too well from torrent sites) and arrest the blithering idiots who actually use their real name and connections.

Or the people who use them. This isn't like having a fake ID to buy booze, this is deliberately trying to spread a virus that kills people

For sure, they're definitely ramping up for that. There's practically nowhere here that actually requires the cards yet, so it's almost more of a feel-good thing for now (and the state's already adopted digital vax ID, so they might turn out to be entirely moot soon). If requirements get stricter, expect more fakers to get busted.

The other half is that a lot of police agencies have anti-vaxxers and sympathizers on the force, too, so you could end up with a lot of winks and nods and "not my job" when they get called to get someone with a fake card.

"deliberately trying to spread a virus"

It's an incredibly far stretch from "not wanting to get vaccinated" to "deliberately trying to spread a virus".

Troll or idiot?

Not wanting to get vaccine - fine stay at home isolated.

Not getting vaccinated and then faking an ID so you can go out and mix with as many people as possible - looks deliberate

Deliberate not so much in the sense of "I want to infect everyone and watch the world burn", more "I don't care what happens to anyone else when I do this, despite knowing the risks".

Or having a poor understanding of risk (could be an effect of low general intelligence), or still thinking it's all a con (could be an effect of mental illness).

Or deluding yourself about the risk, because you're desperate to mingle with people to get some company, because no-one likes you on an individual basis but you can feed off the presence of strangers.

Enforcement is a problem not only on authentic vs fake certificates, it's a basic question as to what should be ebforced not just what it is practical to enforce.

In a space with controlled entry like a cinema, fun park or even workplace, surely a recent negative test is of the same value as a vaccination certificate. (and yes, it's possible to get fakes for both!!)

The contagion problem mostly comes from crowded public gatherings / public transport where it's not always feasible to check if everyone is vaccinated or tested. So you either have to take it on faith that people not wearing masks are either vaccinated or testing negative, or else just insist that everyone wears masks regardless.

The first will surely be abused, and the second is an imposition on healthy people and pushes the borders of civil liberties. Which is exactly what makes this a thorny issue - there is no easy answer that balances public health with civil liberties in a way everyone agrees with. Nor there is there a 'correct' answer (except that of course everyone thinks that their answer is the correct answer)

From what I hear in the US, verification will eventually be through electronic records, but there's currently no central database, as (perhaps due to the previous administration's...complete lack of competence) vaccinations are being coordinated by the states.

My doc has received electronic confirmation of my vaccination status, but the database updates are trickling in, as the various entities actually doing the jabs are reporting the data to a state database, which will then end up at the CDC, one assumes.

So the little card with the blue stickers on it is just a temporary confirmation of your status, which is perhaps why there is not much of an emphasis on detection of forgeries (although I did read of at least one seller of fake cards being nicked)

Or so I'm led to believe...mostly by rumor and observation

My record card has the CDC logo, stickers for each vaccination with lot, date, etc, and a barcoded sticker for my personal information (I was jabbed by a hospital and they were using their standard outpatient recordkeeping software...I asked), so, theoretically, at least, my card could be verified as genuine through them.

Why does the Federal government need to know whether or not I've had a vaccination? Does the Federal government currently track who has or hasn't had the annual flu shot? Or MMR? Or any of the other shots? No, they don't, and they shouldn't start now. It's none of their damn business.

Why does the federal government need to know if I'm qualified to fly this aeroplane ?

Does the Federal government keep track of who operates a lawn mower or a model railroad ?

No they don't - now get out of the way and let me and my fake uniform onto this 737

I would wager big money on all vaccines being held in a federal digital archive after this pandemic, once the COVID infrastructure is in place. And I have no problem with that, since the state run systems, if any, been an absolute hash that plenty of bad actors have been taking advantage of for decades now.

I have a real Feral card. What strikes me is they look pretty easy to forge for a competent forger. They are nothing but thinnish cardboard stock with 1 logo and text. There is some writing (patient info, vaccine, lot no, date, location) which only has to be faked. There are no real security protection.

Here in the NL, we have a QR code.

When the nightclubs were briefly opened in June, (before the majority of 20 somethings had started getting their vaccines) people were just screenshotting their QR code from their phone and sharing it with their friends.

Understandably, cases started rising almost immediately, and the nightclubs were closed just 2 weeks after opening.

Luckily, cases started dropping again 3 weeks or so after the restrictions were reintroduced.