Editor in chief at IamExpat Media
German police are investigating the unusual case of a man accused of receiving at least 87 shots of coronavirus vaccine, in order to sell the vaccination certificates to anti-vaxxers.
The 61-year-old man allegedly visited several different vaccination centres in the eastern states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, attending up to three times a day to get the jabs. According to a report in the Freie Presse, he clocked in 87 coronavirus vaccinations in the state of Saxony alone, and police believe he may have received many more.
Authorities were alerted after a staff member at a vaccination centre in Dresden grew suspicious, recognising the man when he showed up two days in a row to receive a shot against coronavirus. The next time he showed up at a centre in Eilenberg, near Leipzig, staff called the police and he was detained.
During a search, the police confiscated several blank vaccination cards from the man. They allege that he would bring a blank document with him to each appointment, and then after receiving the jab, he would remove the pages with information about the vaccine batch, and sell them to people who did not want to receive the jab themselves.
He apparently registered for appointments using his own name and birthdate, but did not present his health insurance card at appointments - which in itself should have alerted staff that something was amiss.
According to dpa, the man - whose name has not been released in accordance with German privacy laws - is under investigation for issuing vaccination cards without authorisation and forging documents.
The case has laid bare some of the issues with Germany’s healthcare system, which does not routinely digitise or centrally store medical information, partly out of privacy concerns. “A national vaccine register or a coronavirus vaccine register would have shed light on the case immediately,” Knut Köhler, a spokesperson for the Saxony state medical association, told FP.
In recent months, police in Germany have conducted numerous raids in connection with the forging of vaccination passports, which became a flourishing industry under laws that prevented anyone without a vaccination from accessing certain public spaces like restaurants, theatres, and swimming pools.