An Italian health worker, who was suspended from his job for refusing to get vaccinated, tried to trick officials into giving him a jab on a fake arm. The 50-year-old man has been reported to police for his stunt, which he apparently hoped would get him a COVID-19 vaccination certificate without getting inoculated. A nurse, who caught the man’s ruse, reported him for fraud despite his attempts to persuade her to turn a blind eye. “I felt offended as a professional,” Filippa Bua told La Repubblica.

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“The colour of the arm made me suspicious and so I asked the man to uncover the rest of his left arm. It was well made but it wasn’t the same colour,” the nurse said, according to Guardian UK. The man said to her: “Would you have imagined that I’d have such a physique?”

Local police are now investigating the incident in Biella, north-west Italy, which comes amid the announcement of tighter COVID-19 restrictions in the country.

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“The case borders on the ridiculous, if it were not for the fact we are talking about a gesture of enormous gravity,” the head of the Piedmont regional government, Albert Cirio, said in a statement on Facebook.

He said the ploy was “unacceptable faced with the sacrifice that our entire community has paid during the pandemic, in terms of human lives, the social and economic cost”.

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COVID-19 vaccination is mandatory for all health workers in Italy. The country announced the requirement of a “super green pass” from December 6, making vaccination or recovery from COVID-19 mandatory for access to cinemas, theatres, gyms, nightclubs, ski lifts and stadiums, as well as to be served indoors at bars and restaurants. The earlier “green pass” required proof of vaccination, a negative test, or recovery from the virus, for access to these public venues.