Anti-vaxxers and supporters of Donald Trump are cheating the systems by forging vaccination cards to falsely imply that they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Since there is no federal vaccination database due to privacy concerns, the vaccination cards handed out to Americans who have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine is the country’s default way to verify if someone has been vaccinated.
Now, people are making their own vaccination cards using an online template and flashcards.
Pro-Trump and anti vaccination forums throughout the web, have linked to card templates that were left visible on the websites of state governments, including high-resolution PDFs from the websites of both the Wyoming and Missouri health departments, according to NBC News.
On extremist forums like 4chan, users were told to download a template from Wyoming’s Department of Health website, then given instructions for the thickness of the cardstock needed to replicate the cards and how some vaccination centers attach stickers on cards to denote the date, so the recommended resolution for the printed labels was also provided. Users are also reminded to write the date in a blue ballpoint pen, and not to be too neat with their handwriting, emulating a rushed or tired nurse. Some instructions provide potential batch numbers of the Pfizer or Moderna shots that align with dates they were distributed, according to NBC News.
Versions of these instructions were later posted to other right wing forums including gun and QAnon forums.
The CDC has since delivered guidance to states to pull the templates of the vaccination cards from their sites, citing “misuse” by the anti-vaccine community.
A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services explained that the template was on their website initially “because there were times when providers would not receive enough cards with the vaccines, especially when additional doses were being drawn before larger ancillary kits were made available.”
Similar sentiments were echoed in Wyoming where a spokesperson for the state’s health department said “the initial goal for posting the document was to make things a little easier for community providers.”
Both states have since remove the templates.
Creating or buying a fake vaccine card is a crime and may be punishable under Title 18 United States Code, Section 1017, and other applicable laws, the FBI said in March.
