Man uses fake arm to try to get vaccine certificate without actually getting the plug

By Livia Borghese | CNN

A 50-year-old man tried to cast a silicone arm as his own at one Covid-19 vaccination clinic in the north Italy, in an attempt to get a vaccine certificate without actually getting it podet.

The deception was discovered by a nurse, Filippa Bua, when she was going to administer the vaccine in Biella, Piedmont on Thursday. Bua told CNN she noticed something strange on her arm.

“The color of the skin was abnormal, much lighter compared to the hands or face of the patient,” she said.

After inspecting the area, she realized that the arm was fake, made of silicone.

“I first felt sorry for the man when I thought he had a prosthesis and wondered if I had somehow forced him to give me the wrong arm,” Bua said. “But then he admitted that he carried the fake arm on purpose to avoid getting the vaccine!”

The revelation evoked a series of emotions for Bua, who said she has been a nurse since 1987 and has given thousands of plugs.

“At first I was surprised, then I was angry, I felt professionally offended, he showed no respect for our intelligence and our profession,” she said. “I would never expect such a thing in my life.”

The regional government of Piedmont condemned the man’s attempt to defraud the system.

“The case could be classified as ‘ridiculous’, except that we are talking about a gesture of enormous weight, unacceptable for the sacrifice that the whole society pays for the pandemic,” reads a joint communiqué from the President and Health Councilor of the Piedmont region. .

In a video message, the president of the Piedmontese regional government, Alberto Cirio, went on to say that the incident was “a violation of the region’s health system, which is among the first in Italy for vaccination capacity and for booster doses.”

On November 30, Cirio tweeted a map from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, in which Piedmont appears among the few areas in Europe marked in green, meaning the Covid-19 infection rate is below 1%.

The Biella health department has filed a complaint with the local prosecution.

The Italian government last month signed a decree making a Covid-19 “super green passport” mandatory in bars, restaurants, theaters and other indoor entertainment venues.

Under the new measure, only those with full vaccination or proof of cure from coronavirus have access to such sites.

The original “green passport”, which has been in effect for indoor venues and long-distance trains since September 1, allows people to show evidence of a negative Covid test within the previous 48 hours instead of full vaccination or proof of cure for to access resorts. The green passport is still valid at workplaces and has been extended to local public transport.

Protests was held in a number of Italian cities in mid-October when the requirement for all workers in the country to show the government-issued green passport came into force.

The-CNN-Wire
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