Published April 3, 2022 in theguardian.com
By Associated Press
A 60-year-old man allegedly had himself vaccinated against Covid-19 dozens of times in Germany in order to sell vaccination cards to people who did not want to get the jab themselves.
The man from the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg, whose name was not released in line with German privacy rules, is said to have received up to 90 shots against Covid at vaccination centres in Saxony for months until he was caught by police, the German news agency dpa reported on Sunday.
The suspect was not detained but is under investigation for issuing vaccination cards without authorisation and document forgery, dpa reported.
He was caught at a vaccination centre in Eilenburg in Saxony when he showed up for a Covid shot for the second day in a row. Police confiscated several blank vaccination cards from him and initiated criminal proceedings. By taking the jab doses the man would have been given real vaccine batch numbers to put on the cards.
It was not immediately clear what impact the approximately 90 shots of Covid-19 vaccines, which were from different brands, had on the man’s health.
German police have conducted many raids in connection with forgery of vaccination passports in recent months. Many Covid deniers refuse to get vaccinated in Germany, but at the same time want to have the coveted passports that make access to public life and venues such as restaurants, theatres, swimming pools or workplaces much easier.
Germany has had high infection numbers for weeks, yet many measures to rein in the pandemic ended on Friday. Wearing masks is no longer compulsory in grocery stores and most theatres but it is still mandatory on public transportation.
Health experts say the most recent surge of infections in Germany – triggered by the BA.2 omicron subvariant – may have peaked.
On Sunday, the country’s disease control agency reported 74,053 new infections in one day, while less than a week ago it reported 111,224 daily infections.
Overall, Germany has registered 130,029 Covid deaths.
