Russia probes fake vaccination certificates

SAINT PETERSBURG: Russian authorities on Monday were investigating nurses and a doctor in Saint Petersburg accused of selling fake coronavirus vaccination certificates, as the country faces a deadly new wave.

The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said a doctor and three nurses are suspected of pocketing at least RUB100,000 ($1,430) from 12 people after selling official certificates without having administered jabs.

The 12 alleged buyers were entered into a state registry of vaccinated people, the Investigative Committee said in a statement on Saturday.

The doctor was briefly detained on Saturday and a court later banned him from leaving the city pending the investigation, a spokesman for Saint Petersburg police, Vyacheslav Stepchenko, told AFP on Monday.

Saint Petersburg is Russia’s second most affected city.

Independent polls show that more than half of Russians do not plan to get a shot, and the proliferation of fake jab certificates has been a persistent problem.

Infection rates have soared in recent weeks amid a stalled vaccination campaign, with just over 30 per cent of the country fully inoculated despite several widely available vaccines including Sputnik V.

To curb the surge in infections, President Vladimir Putin last week ordered a nationwide week-long paid holiday from October 30.

Officials have been accused of downplaying the severity of the pandemic, but even official figures bring the country’s official Covid-19 death toll to 231,669, the highest in Europe.