Woman arrested in Hawaii with Covid-19 Maderna vaccine card

A 24-year-old woman from Illinois was arrested Sunday as she tried to enter Hawaii with a fake covid-19 vaccination card. How did the authorities know it was wrong? To begin with, the forged card indicated that the woman had received the “Maderna” vaccine rather than the Moderna vaccine.

The woman, identified as Chloe Mrozak, was arrested at Daniel K. Inouy International Airport on the island of Oahu, according to the local TV station. KITV. Mrozak faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and is reportedly being held on $ 2,000 bail.

All visitors to Hawaii must self-quarantine for 10 days upon arrival, but this requirement is waived for people who have been fully vaccinated. By bringing a fake vaccine card, Mrozak reportedly hoped to bypass mandatory quarantine and endanger the health of Hawaii’s 1.4 million people.

While Hawaii’s mandatory quarantine program has kept cases relatively low since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, the state has seen a worrying increase in new infections in the past month. The state reported 553 new cases as of Tuesday alone, a large increase from June when cases in Hawaii were around 30 per day.

Governor David Ige urged tourists to delay their Hawaii vacations until November with the aim of reducing the number of daily cases – a surprising demand from a state so dependent on tourism.

“I have requested that all non-essential travel by residents and visitors to Hawaii be delayed or reduced until the end of October,” Ige told the Featured Advertiser Last week.

“I have had calls with all the airlines and have spoken with the hospitality industry to support this requirement. I think it’s important that we reduce the number of visitors coming here to the islands, ”continued Ige.

Hawaii has 63.26% of its people vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University, the seventh best rate in the country. And that’s far higher than the national covid-19 vaccination rate, which sits at a stubbornly low level of 55.9%.

Authorities recently cracked down on people selling and using fake vaccination cards, with Manhattan prosecutors announcing on Tuesday that Jasmine Clifford, 31, had been accused of selling 250 fake vaccination cards on Instagram. Clifford, whose pseudonym is @AntiVaxMomma on the social media service, is expected to be charged with two felonies for the scheme, according to the New York Times.

The moral of the story? Do not play with the fake vaccination cards. It’s not like trying out a fake college ID at the local bar. You may face felony charges and jail time for making or using fake covid-19 vaccine certificates because getting the vaccine is a serious public health issue. You put tens, if not hundreds and thousands of people at risk when you run around with counterfeit vaccination cards. We are in a global pandemic and at least 100,000 more Americans are expected to die from the disease between now and december, according to the latest modeling.

Get vaccinated and stop playing with false cards. The vaccine is free and it is literally the least you can do for yourself and for those you love.