BBefore clearing his page on Tuesday, TikTok user hann.brooke95 was not ashamed to share even the most mundane details of his life with his 19,400 followers.
She posted TikToks of herself cooking while breastfeeding, the can of beans she was using for nachos and even the painstaking process of transferring her license as a pharmacy technician from Florida to Illinois, from filling out the form to posting a label. return address and stamp on the envelope, until you drop it in the mailbox in front of her house.
And the flow of day-to-day minutiae could have continued if she also hadn’t used TikTok to boast that she stole the COVID-19 vaccination cards from her job so that she and her husband could pass for vaccinates.
“I work at a pharmacy and bought some blank ones for me and my husband,” she wrote in another user’s TikTok comments on fake vaccination cards.
It didn’t take long for other users Becca Walker and Savannah Sparks to extend the return address label and compare the name and address to the public records of Hannah Brooke Hutchinson, 25, who is registered as a pharmacy technician in Illinois. Sparks then reported her to the same Illinois Pharmacy Council that had just granted her license. The Illinois Pharmacy Council told The Daily Beast that it does not comment on the investigations.
“I’m sure you shouldn’t steal your job. And I’m sure you shouldn’t steal blank vaccination papers for COVID-19 to falsify information and claim that you and your husband were vaccinated when in reality you weren’t, ”said Walker in a TikTok she posted to call her Outside.
Hutchinson did not respond to several phone calls and text messages sent to numbers associated with her and her boyfriend. But after Walker and Sparks posted TikToks about her, Hutchinson deleted his TikTok and deleted his Instagram and Facebook accounts. The Daily Beast, however, was able to review the enlarged image and independently confirm Hutchinson’s details, including his pharmacy technician license, through public records.
Just before cleaning her TikTok, she posted: “Stop hating me! I don’t care what any of you think. I did what is best for my husband and me. Hours later, she posted another TikTok claiming to be a 16 year old girl in the UK doing an experiment for her father, who is a filmmaker. But the TikToks, which date back a year, tracked her husband’s Facebook page, which was also deleted, where she appeared to be a mother in her 20s.
“Very sick people go to pharmacies, so when you have a pharmacy employee lying about being vaccinated, everyone is at risk,” Sparks, herself a pharmacist in Biloxi, Mississippi, told The Daily Beast. “I don’t want them in the profession.”
But Hutchinson is far from the only health care professional who appears to be trying to get into the vaccinated world, a trend that could have huge implications for the vulnerable Americans these employees serve.
Since Monday, Walker and Sparks, together, have posted more than half a dozen TikTok videos calling healthcare professionals who spoke online about forging or trying to forge vaccine cards. And they say that other users have sent dozens of other tips that they could not verify.
“I’m just sitting here confused, thinking about the implications of all this.“
– Dr. William Schaffner
“It’s overwhelming,” said Sparks. And, public health experts warn, it is extremely dangerous.
“I’m just sitting here confused, thinking about the implications of all of this,” said Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “Anyone who works in the health care environment obviously contributes to the safety of the environment, which is their own safety, the safety of their colleagues and also of the patients they serve.”
He said that those caught doing this are likely to lose their jobs, if not their careers.
“We are trying to make the entire health environment a COVID-free zone and, by deliberately undermining it, this is beyond the unprofessional. It is profoundly unethical and contrary to any oath that a healthcare professional has taken when accepting his or her diploma. I imagine that there would be implications at the licensing level. “
But the fear of professional reprisals has not prevented some health professionals from turning the taboo topic of vaccine hesitation into fodder to chase the weight.
Under Hutchinson’s original comment on pinching blank cards, Texas nurse Courtney Long wrote, “Can I pay you to send me a couple?” Followed by an emoji crying and laughing. Sparks was able to identify Long through the Instagram profile that Long included in her TikTok, where she talked about being a nurse, and a Facebook profile link, under the name Courtney Renee Long, where she also talked about being a nurse. The Texas Board of Nursing website identifies Courtney Renee Long as a licensed practical nurse.
“Is it you, Miss LPN?” Sparks said in a TikTok that she did it by calling Long. “Ah yes, the Texas Nursing Council is going to see all of this.”
Sparks said he reported Long to the Texas Board of Nursing. When contacted by The Daily Beast, the board said it did not comment on the investigations. The Daily Beast made several attempts to contact Long, via a number associated with family phone numbers and Pinterest, the only social media account in his name that still existed on Saturday. Calls to a number associated with your name and address have not been returned.
Sparks and Walker say they also called and reported a cancer nurse in Alabama, a trauma nurse at a children’s hospital in Philadelphia and a receptionist at an asthma clinic.
If it seems surprising that vaccine resistance exists among medical professionals, even those with a solid scientific background, Schaffer said he simply highlights how many Americans are still resistant to vaccination, more than three months after the first jabs went into the arms of the vaccine line. health professionals. In February, a survey conducted by experts at Northwestern, Northeastern, Rutgers and Harvard found that 21% of health workers interviewed did not want to be vaccinated. The hesitation, which indicates skepticism about the vaccine, but not an absolute reluctance to be vaccinated, was 37 percent.
“There are a large number of people who are not only indifferent, but disdainful of the vaccine, they simply will not receive it. And these are the remnants of a political approach to ambition during the last government, ”said Schaffner. “It is difficult to undo that bell.”
Of course, healthcare professionals are not alone among antivaxxers trying to pass themselves off as vaccinated, and on Thursday, the Office of the Inspector General warned those who were vaccinated not to post pictures of their vaccination cards online because of an increase in fake cards.
As more Americans get vaccinated, antivaxxers turn to social media to heighten fear of a future ruled by Biden, in which those without a vaccination card will be rejected in restaurants, hospitals and even at Target.
“If they are handing out a card to check that you are vaccinated, there is apparently a reason for that. You may not be able to shop, travel, buy underwear, ”posted TikTok user truevalor469 in a recliner earlier this month. “Hmm. It looks like the beginning.”
The reaction against Walker and Sparks’ crusade to discover anti-xxxxx health workers on TikTok was harsh. On Wednesday, Sparks changed his phone number after another TikTok user found him and started harassing her. The threats were so severe that, on Friday, she had to issue a statement on her company’s website and close the review section.
So far, there are no government requirements to have a vaccination card, and Schaffner said he has not heard of any private companies that require it for their employees or customers. Yesterday, Rutgers University in New Jersey became the first college to require students to be vaccinated, but Schaffner said fears, however widespread they may be, are for the time being exaggerated.
“By misrepresenting themselves, they just avoid a lot of controversy,” he said. “So, they are doing this reprehensible thing to avoid discomfort and have to explain themselves and be responsible for their actions.”
Walker said he suspects that some of the users may not be as serious about faking their vaccines as they are about pursuing the influence that the taboo topic brings.
“If you put on a TikTok saying, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be vaccinated. Sell me a vaccine card, ‘this is an automatic 100,000 view, ”Walker told The Daily Beast.
A TikTok user named linds3r commented on a viral TikTok about counterfeit vaccination cards, writing: “I have a template, if you want” and later “lol (I did) 8 of them so far on the front and back. ” This user, Lindsey Stauffer, says on Facebook that she is a medical billing officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. She also makes and sells anti-Biden and pro-Trump t-shirts on her Facebook page, which includes several of the same images from her TikTok.
Reached by The Daily Beast, Stauffer admitted to writing the posts, but denied that he had made eight letters.
“I didn’t write about how to do them. I said I know where you can get one. You can go to Google right now and get pictures of it yourself, ”Stauffer told The Daily Beast. “I’m not doing anything. Anyone can access it. “
Stauffer also denied living in Lebanon, although the phone number used to reach her lists that as her address. She denied working at VA, despite listing him as her employer on Facebook. (The Federal Office Veteran’s Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) Stauffer also said that she had already been vaccinated.
“So, why would I need to do them?” she told the Daily Beast.
But even when medical professionals joke about falsifying vaccinations, Schaffner said, it can create problems.
“When people hear that healthcare professionals are doing this, it undermines the public’s faith in these institutions and their ability to keep them safe,” said Schaffner.