7 Hawaii Travelers Have Been Charged in a Month for Fake Vaccination Cards

Since the start of August, the state of Hawaii has arrested seven tourists for attempting to use phony vaccine cards to get past the state's quarantine rules, Hawaii Now News reported.

These individuals could face up to a year in jail and as much as $5,000 in fines.

Newsweek reported on one of the most recent individuals to attempt this, 24-year-old Chloe Mrozak of Illinois, who misspelled Moderna as "Maderna" on her false vaccine card.

Mrozak attempted to avoid detection by entering fake hotel reservation details which allowed her to freely vacation on the island. However, she was ultimately caught at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport when she was attempting to return to the mainland.

"We are concerned and that's why we're using our resources...to address every single case that comes to our attention," Clare Connors, Hawaii Attorney General, said in Hawaii News Now's report. "Fraud is easy with this type of document so we then have put into place measures to ensure we can verify it and prosecute them when they are fraudulently altered."

Hawaii has some of the strongest COVID-19 regulations in the country. While it allows vaccinated tourists to freely enter the state without submitting testing, unvaccinated victors must have unvaccinated tests upon arrival or submit to a 10-day quarantine.

Despite restrictions on travel, monetary incentives, FDA approval, and CDC encouragement, 38 percent of Americans have yet to get their first shot. Vaccination remains an object of political polarization with politicians like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, publicly making false claims about the vaccine's effectiveness and the dangers of contracting the virus.

Despite facing anti-vaccine rallying cries by Greene and a number of her far-right allies, former President Donald Trump recently called on his supporters to take the "good" vaccine during a rally in Georgia. He was subsequently booed by the crowd.

Over 1.3 million Americans tested positive for COVID-19 over the past week. Two weeks prior, six states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas, reported their ICUs were at over 90 percent capacity. The CDC continues to attribute much of the spread to the highly contagious Delta variant which two studies have shown is more likely to lead to hospitalization in unvaccinated individuals than previous versions of the virus.

In wake of the Pfizer shot receiving FDA approval, President Joe Biden placed greater pressure on businesses to encourage their employees to take the shot.