A 50-year-old Italian man was caught trying to get a coronavirus vaccine certificate without actually getting the shot, by using a fake arm instead of his own.

Today, Italian media reported the bizarre case of a man who visited a vaccination center in Biella, northwest Italy on Thursday evening, claiming he wanted to get a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Everything went smoothly until the 50-year-old man, whose name was not made public for privacy reasons, was asked by the nurse to lift up his sleeve. He only partially revealed his upper arm, which the nurse thought was a bit odd, but she was only certain that something was wrong when she touched his skin and felt that it wasn’t quite the wrong texture…

Photo: Steven Cornfield/Unsplash

Realizing that what she touched while preparing to deliver the vaccine wasn’t human skin or flesh, the nurse asked the Biella-born man to uncover his arm completely, at which point he attempted to hide what turned out to be a fake, silicone arm and even tried to convince the nurse to present that she hadn’t seen anything.

Unfortunately for the alleged anti-vaxer, who just wanted to pretend to get the Covid-19 jab just so he could then get the vaccine certificate required in order to go to work and enjoy social liberties without having to get tested every 48 hours, the nurse alerted her superiors, who called the police.

 

“The case borders on the ridiculous, except that we are talking about a gesture of enormous gravity, unacceptable in the face of the sacrifice that the pandemic is making our entire community pay, in terms of human lives and social and economic costs,” Alberto Cirio, the governor of Piedmont, said, thanking the “responsible” staff who turned in the offendant.

The “genius” who came up with the idea of using a silicone arm for the vaccine will most likely face a criminal complaint and will have to show up in front of a judge.