Group offers fake COVID-19 cards
Hartford — A group of Connecticut women who attended a rally opposing a vaccine bill in Hartford on Tuesday was offering fake COVID-19 vaccination cards outside the state Capitol.
The blue cards, marked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention name and logo and made to look like official vaccination cards, were in a cardboard box — labeled with “lose your card?” — available for anyone to grab.
The women who provided the cards did not want to share their last names but said they came to the rally from East Windsor and Coventry. Wearing matching lime green T-shirts, they — Ali, Kim, Rebecca and Nicole — said the cards were for people who received the vaccine and needed a replacement card.
“They’re for people that already got vaccinated and they lost their card. The CDC isn’t replacing them, so we’re just replacing them,” Nicole said.
They said they didn’t think unvaccinated people would take the cards but weren’t monitoring who took them. In a 10-minute period, several people stopped to take a card, or a handful.
“I have more faith in humanity than that,” Nicole said. “If somebody uses it for the wrong purpose, I’m sure it’s a very small percentage.”
A trio of women walking past remarked that they already had purchased fake vaccination cards elsewhere, one saying she’d ordered a dozen for various family members.
Nicole, one of the women with the group that was providing the cards, said she was not vaccinated but had an irregular menstrual cycle after being near someone who was vaccinated and wanted to caution people about that risk. There are no known risks of being near a person who has been vaccinated.
Another woman in the group denied that the vaccination cards belonged to them. The group also was handing out posters and fresh fruit.
Another, named Rebecca, said she had not gotten the COVID-19 vaccine but was not against vaccines. She said she is against being required to show proof of a vaccination in order to do certain things, such as travel.
Ali agreed and said she had an issue with “requiring a certain pharmaceutical product to participate in society.”
“It’s important to reiterate that we’re not anti-vaccine,” Rebecca said.
“It goes back to the idea of a choice — I have never before been forced to take a vaccine or prove that I’ve been vaccinated, I’ve never had to say ‘I have my flu shot’ to get on a plane or go into a building,” she added.
Capitol police estimated that there were about 3,000 people at the rally Tuesday. The department said they were not aware of any investigation into the fake vaccination cards that were being offered on Capitol grounds.