Hochul signs new law criminalizing fake vaccine cards

New York – Producing or using a fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination card is a state crime after Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation on Wednesday.

Hochul signed the law in order to improve the state’s response to the pandemic.

The new law makes falsifying a vaccine card a Class A misdemeanor.

It also creates a felony classification of computer tampering for intentionally entering, altering, or destroying material related to COVID-19 vaccine provisions.

It’s already a crime at the federal level.

“We need to make sure we learn the lessons of the pandemic so we don’t make the same mistakes twice,” Gov. Hochul said. “These new laws will help us improve our response to the pandemic now, a crackdown on fraudulent use of vaccination records, and help us better understand the areas of improvement we need to make to our health care system so we can be even more prepared down the road.”