Whichever side of the vaccination debate you stand on, hopefully we can all agree that forging medical documents in the form of fake vaccine cards is not the move. If you’re on the right side of TikTok, you’re probably not aware that many college students are looking to fake their Covid-19 vaccination cards. How embarrassing. You’d think that after the biggest healthcare crisis we’ve had in the 21st century, people would be excited to get vaccinated, making their part in controlling this virus that killed more than 700 thousand people in the U.S. alone, yet vaccine resistance among conservative Americans is stronger than ever, playing a huge role in keeping us from ending the Covid-19 pandemic. Even with a bunch of Covid-19 vaccination incentives — such as cash prizes, free products, and vacation giveaways — anti-vaxxers remain anti-vaxxers. If you, too, thought they’d change their mind about vaccination when colleges and universities, as well as restaurants, concerts, clubs, and festivals, started asking for proof of vaccination and/or a negative Covid test, then they played us both, turning to fraud as they remain willfully ignorant to the importance of science and vaccines.
If you’re out there thinking about buying a fake vaccination card or bragging about it on TikTok, you should know that this is not the flex you think it is (quite the opposite, actually). First and foremost, faking a Covid-19 vaccination card is illegal, and this violation could land you up to 5 years in prison. If you don’t want to spend your college years in prison uniforms, let’s avoid faking a Covid-19 vaccination card, okay? May I also remind you that vaccines are free, and faking a Covid-19 vaccination card can cost hundreds of dollars? Not to mention the fees that’ll amount when you get caught. You’re basically paying good money to commit a felony. And while it’s clear that the people who’d rather fake a card than get vaccinated don’t care about what happens to their health if they catch Covid – though they should, considering unvaccinated people are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized due to Covid infection than vaccinated people – it’s unfair to put friends, family and strangers alike at risk by pretending to be vaccinated.
If imprisonment, hospitalization and outrageous costs aren’t enough to sway you from getting vaccinated instead of faking it, here’s yet another negative side to this: when buying a fake Covid-19 vaccination card, you’re also giving your personal information to scammers, which could lead to identity theft. So, just to sum it up: it’s a felony, it’s costly, it’s a risk to your health and the health of the ones you love, and it can also lead to scammers taking advantage of your data. Tell me, what of any of the above sounds appealing?
In the end, no matter what anyone else says, anti-vaxxers have made up their minds. It’s clear they’ll do whatever it takes to follow their cult-like beliefs. The good news is that if you’re not feeling safe on your college’s campus due to people having fake vaccination cards, you can file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. I’d just love to be the reason an anti-vaxxer faces the consequences of their actions, wouldn’t you?