MILAN (AP) – A dentist is facing possible criminal charges in Italy for trying to receive a COVID-19 vaccine on a fake arm made of silicone.
Filippa Bua, the nurse who treated him in the northern city of Biella, said she immediately realized something was wrong when the man presented the fake limb for the injection on Thursday.
“When I discovered the arm, I felt that the skin was cold and sticky, and that the color was too light,” Bua told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
At first he thought that the 57-year-old man had his arm amputated and had made a mistake in showing it. But he lifted her shirt and saw the silicone prosthesis.
“I understood immediately that the man was trying to avoid the vaccine by using a silicone prosthesis, in which he expected me to inject him with the medicine without realizing it,” he added.
According to the nurse, the man acknowledged that he did not want the vaccine, but the “super” pass that from Monday will be mandatory throughout Italy to enter restaurants, cinemas, theaters and other venues.
The dentist had already been suspended from work for his refusal to get vaccinated, something mandatory for health personnel in the country.
The man was educated and left the vaccination center after his failed attempt, Bua added.
“We stopped, reflected and understood that this was not just a surreal situation, but a real attempt at fraud,” added the nurse. She and other workers at the center sent the documentation to their superiors to report the case, which was handed over to the prosecution.
Although the country’s vaccination rate is relatively high – 85% of those over the age of 12 who are eligible – people between the ages of 30 and 59 have proven to be the most reticent, with almost 3.5 million people they have not even received the first dose in that group.
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