Italian health worker attempts using trick to escape COVID jab

An Italian man, who wanted a COVID vaccination certificate without getting the jab attempted to trick health workers with a fake arm. The man, in his 50s, arrived for his shot with a silicone mould covering his real arm, hoping it would go unnoticed. But a nurse was not fooled and the man has now […]

An Italian man, who wanted a COVID vaccination certificate without getting the jab attempted to trick health workers with a fake arm.

The man, in his 50s, arrived for his shot with a silicone mould covering his real arm, hoping it would go unnoticed.

But a nurse was not fooled and the man has now been reported to the police.

The nurse told local media that when she had rolled up his sleeve, she found the skin “rubbery and cold” and the pigment “too light”.

After being discovered, the man tried to persuade the nurse to turn a blind eye, la Repubblica reported, but instead she reported him to the police for fraud.

Local police are now investigating the incident in Biella, north-west Italy.

“The case borders on the ridiculous, if it were not for the fact we are talking about a gesture of enormous gravity,” the head of the Piedmont regional government, Albert Cirio, said in a statement on Facebook.

He said the ploy was “unacceptable faced with the sacrifice that our entire community has paid during the pandemic, in terms of human lives, the social and economic cost”.

The man is said to be a health worker, who had been suspended from his job, because he had not been vaccinated.

The jab is mandatory for all health workers in Italy.