Fake COVID-19 vaccination cards worry college officials

SAN LUIS OBISPO, California (AP) — As the delta variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the United States, a growing number of colleges and universities are requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for students to attend in-person classes.

But the mandatory requirement has opened the door for those opposed to getting the vaccine to cheat the system, according to interviews with students, education and law enforcement officials.

Both faculty and students at dozens of schools interviewed by The Associated Press say they are concerned about how easy it is to get fake vaccine cards.

Across the Internet, a cottage industry has sprung up to accommodate people who say they won't get vaccinated for either personal or religious reasons.

An Instagram account with the username “vaccinationcards” sells laminated COVID-19 vaccination cards for $25 each.

An increasing number of inquiries to these sites and similar ones appear to be from those who are trying to get fake vaccination cards for college.

According to a tally by The Chronicle of Higher Education, at least 664 colleges and universities now require proof of COVID-19 inoculations.

The process to confirm vaccination at many schools can be as simple as uploading a picture of the vaccine card to the student's portal.

In Nashville, Vanderbilt University places a hold on a student's course registration until their vaccine record has been verified unless they have an approved medical accommodation or religious exemption.

The University of Michigan says it has a system in place to confirm employee and student vaccinations.

A spokesman for the college told the AP the school has not encountered any problems so far with students forging their COVID-19 vaccination record cards.

But Benjamin Mason Meier, a global health policy professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, questions how institutions can verify those records.

In a statement to the AP, UNC said the institution conducts periodic verification of documents and that lying about vaccination status or falsifying documents is a violation of the university's COVID-19 community standards and may result in disciplinary action.

Dr. Sarah Van Orman, the chief health officer at the University of Southern California and COVID-19 task force member for the American College Health Association, said college campuses are especially challenging environments to control the spread of COVID-19 since tens of thousands of students move into campus from all over the world.

But if students falsify their vaccination status, she said it may have limited impact.

“I think that the numbers of students who would do that would be so very small that it wouldn't affect our kind of ability to get good community immunity,” Orman said.

In March, the concern over fake COVID-19 vaccination cards prompted the FBI to issue a joint statement with the US Department of Health and Human Services urging people not to buy, create or sell fabricated vaccine cards.

The unauthorised use of the seal of an official government agency such as HHS or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a federal crime that carries a possible fine and a maximum of five years in prison.

Requiring vaccinations to attend class at colleges and universities has become a contentious political issue in some states.

Public colleges in at least 13 states including Ohio, Utah, Tennessee and Florida cannot legally require COVID-19 vaccinations due to state legislation, but private institutions in those same states can.

Among the states introducing and passing bills barring educational institutions from mandating COVID-19 vaccines, infringement on individual rights or liberties is often cited as the main concern.

But according to a statement released by the American College Health Association and other educational organisations, these restrictions impede on universities' abilities to operate fully and safely.

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