As most of us know, a single typo can often make a huge difference. Sure, I may walk away from both a meth lab and a math lab feeling confused, agitated, and savagely grinding my teeth, but the experiences are actually quite different.
But while spelling is an important skill for most folks, for forgers it’s a grim necessity. No one is going to buy a painting of surreal melted pimiento loaf sandwiches draped over sere desert flora if it’s signed by Salvador Deli. Not for millions, anyway.
Similarly, if you’re going to pretend you’ve been vaccinated, you might want to spell the name of your vaccine correctly, unlike one recent traveler to Hawaii last month.
The Hill:
Chloe Mrozak, 24, flew into Oahu, Hawaii on Aug. 23, and showed her fraudulent vaccination card to bypass the state’s mandatory 10-day quarantine for unvaccinated visitors. The card misspelled the vaccine Moderna as “Maderna.” However, by the time the airport realized it was forged, Mrozak had already departed the airport.
The card stated she had been vaccinated in Delaware by the National Guard, but there were no records of her vaccination in the state.
Hey, Hawaii already has enough problems with invasive species. It doesn’t need smug and ignorant mainlanders exporting their freedom phlegm to the archipelago, too.
As The Chicago Tribune notes, Mrozak, from the Windy City suburb of Oak Park, also claimed she was staying at a Holiday Inn Express but wasn’t, so authorities weren’t able to track her down until she showed up at the airport for her return flight five days later.
Investigators arrested Mrozak at the airport on her departure date, and she told them that she paid for her vaccination card at her doctor’s office, according to court records.
The COVID-19 vaccines, of course, are available in this country, free of charge.
NBC5 Chicago reports that Mrozak was unable to make her $2,000 bail and has been appointed a public defender, and could face state and federal charges.
"The Department of the Attorney General is committed to vigorous enforcement of the Governor’s Emergency Proclamation," a spokesperson said in a statement. "Everyone should know that falsified CDC cards are a federal offense and in some states, it is a separate state charge. In Hawaii, using falsified proof of testing or vaccination documents for travel into the state is a misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $5,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year for each count. Our department will prosecute these crimes to the fullest extent provided by the law."
Well, if you’re a dumbfuck, you might as well double and triple down on your dumbfuckery. Spell the name of the vaccine wrong? Check. Tell a blatant lie that can be easily fact-checked on the spot? Check. Fill a bakery piping bag with horse paste and suck it down like a college freshman beer-bonging Leinenkugel’s at his first fraternity rush party? Check … back in a couple of weeks, because that seems inevitable.
Of course, Mrozak isn’t the only American to decide that a hefty fine is better than a free vaccine and lasting protection from rampaging death viruses. Forgers across the country are doing their utmost to prolong this eminently quash-able pandemic.
In fact, some people are setting up actual phony vaccine crime rings.
According to WABC-TV in New York, 15 people were charged on Aug. 31 over a conspiracy to sell phony vaccine cards.
Among those charged is a woman who allegedly sold 250 fake cards on Instagram, believed to be among the first alleged seller of phony vaccine cards charged in the country.
Officials say 31-year-old Jasmine Clifford sold the forged cards over social media and worked with 27-year-old Nadayza Barkley to fraudulently enter at least 10 people into the New York State Immunization Information System database.
Thirteen people who purchased the cards -- all of whom are believed to work in frontline and essential-employee settings, including hospitals and nursing homes - were also charged.
Back in Mrozak’s home state, as NBC5 Chicago reminds us, a phony vaccine card scheme was uncovered last month.
A Chicago pharmacist was also arrested two weeks ago on federal charges of stealing and selling authentic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 vaccination cards, federal investigators announced.
Once again for the jabronis in the back, here are your choices: a) get a free, safe, and effective vaccine, or b) commit prosecutable crimes and likely infect dozens of unsuspecting people with a deadly disease. Seems like an easy choice, but what do I know?
It now appears that our only way to “herd immunity” is to simply wait for the herd to be culled further, and that’s pretty depressing. But hey, the ocher abomination set us on this path, and his followers are taking that road less traveled right over the cliff.
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