Some COVID patients who died may have had fake vaccine cards – Dr. Anthony

Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony says that the local health authorities suspect that some of the patients who died with a COVID-19 infection but were listed as vaccinated may not have been vaccinated. Instead, those patients may have had fake COVID-19 vaccine cards.

“Sometimes it is very difficult to verify the cards that are presented whether they are fake.

“In some instances, while the persons are at the hospital, they would talk to the health staff and some of them would’ve confessed that they were not vaccinated – they only had a card,” the Health Minister told the News Room on Thursday.

When asked about how the Health Ministry could verify a patient’s vaccination status, the Health Minister only said that health workers would work along with the relatives of those patients who passed away.

“… we can only go with the information that is provided,” he lamented.

He added: “We suspect that a lot of those persons are unvaccinated but it is what it is.”

Digital vaccine cards have been touted as a solution to combat these fake or forged vaccine cards. That digital system, the Health Minister said previously, should be instituted in early 2022.

Until then, a challenging paper-based system continues to be used. The Health Minister also said that more recently, in cases where the health workers cannot verify vaccination status with a relative, the dead patient’s vaccination status is being listed as “unknown.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony explained that fewer fully vaccinated people have died after being infected with COVID-19. This is so because these vaccines are more likely to prevent the more serious or life-threatening symptoms of COVID-19.

He also pointed out that the “very few people” who were fully vaccinated and died were people who had several underlying illnesses each. With those illnesses, the patients were already very ill and coronavirus infection further deteriorated their health.

“… the bottom line here is that people need to get vaccinated and we need to encourage them to do so,” the Health Minister emphasised.