BTherefore, he deleted his page on Tuesday, TikTok user hann.brooke95 had not been shy about sharing even the most mundane details of his life with his 19,400 followers.
She posted TikToks about herself cooking while breastfeeding, the can of beans she used for nachos and even the meticulous process of transferring her license as a Florida pharmacy technician to Illinois, from filling the sun. until you put an address label and a stamp. on the envelope, to drop it in the mailbox in front of his house.
And the flow of minute meticulousness could have continued if she hadn’t used TikTok to brag about stealing COVID-19 vaccination cards from her job so she and her husband could get vaccinated.
“I work at a pharmacy and picked up blank ones for me and my husband,” she wrote in another user’s TikTok comments about fake vaccination cards.
It didn’t take long for the other users, Becca Walker and Savannah Sparks, to extend this return address label and match the name and address with the public records of Hannah Brooke Hutchinson, 25, registered as a technician. of Pharmacy in Illinois Sparks reported her to the same Illinois Pharmacy Board that had just granted her the license. The Illinois Pharmacy Board told The Daily Beast that it does not comment on any investigation.
“I’m sure you’re not supposed to steal your job. And I’m sure you’re not supposed to steal blank vaccination documents for COVID-19 to falsify information and claim that you and your husband were vaccinated when you actually weren’t, ”Walker said in a TikTok post for call her out.
Hutchinson did not respond to several phone calls and text messages sent to the numbers associated with her and her boyfriend. But after Walker and Sparks posted TikToks about her, Hutchinson wiped her TikTok off her and deleted her 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 up the TikTok, he posted, “Stop hating me! I don’t care what any of you think. I did my best for my husband and for myself. ” Hours later he published 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 went back a year, tracked down her husband’s Facebook page, which has also been deleted, where she appeared to be a mother in her twenties.
“Very sick people come into pharmacies, so when you have a pharmacy employee lying about vaccination, everyone is at risk,” she told The Daily Beast Sparks, herself a pharmacist from Biloxi, Mississippi. “I don’t want them in the profession.”
But Hutchinson is far from the only health professional who seems to be trying to get into the vaccinated world, a trend that could have huge implications for vulnerable Americans serving these employees.
Since Monday, Walker and Sparks have jointly posted more than half a dozen TikTok videos calling health workers who have spoken online about counterfeiting or attempting to counterfeit vaccine cards. And they say other users have sent them dozens more tips that they haven’t been able to verify.
“I’m just sitting here sunk, thinking about the implications of it all.”
– Dr. William Schaffner
“It’s overwhelming,” Sparks said. And, public health experts warn, it’s incredibly dangerous.
“I’m sitting here, baffled, thinking about the implications of it all,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “Anyone who works in the health environment obviously contributes to the safety of the environment, which is their own safety, that of their colleagues and the patients they care for.”
He said those who were caught doing so would probably lose their jobs, if not their careers.
“We are trying to make the whole healthcare environment a COVID-free zone and deliberately undermining it, this is more than unprofessional. It is deeply unethical and contrary to the oath that a healthcare worker took when he accepted the his degree. I imagine there would be licensing implications. “
But fear of professional retaliation has not stopped some health workers from turning the taboo subject of vaccine hesitation into fodder pursuing influence.
Under Hutchinson’s original comment about pinching blank cards, Texas nurse Courtney Long wrote, “Can I pay you to send me a pair,” followed by a crying, laughing emoji? Sparks was able to identify Long through the Instagram profile Long included on her TikTok, where she talked about being a nurse and a linked Facebook profile, with 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 nurse.
“Is that you, Miss LPN?” Sparks said in a TikTok that he did by calling Long. “Oh yeah, the Texas Nursing Board will see it all.”
Sparks said he reported Long to the Texas Nursing Board. When contacted by The Daily Beast, the council said it does not comment on the investigations. The Daily Beast made several attempts to reach Long, through a number associated with the phone numbers of family members and Pinterest, the only social media account in his name that still existed since Saturday. Calls to a number associated with your name and address were not returned.
Sparks and Walker say they also called and reported an oncology nurse in Alabama, a trauma nurse at a Philadelphia children’s hospital and a receptionist at an asthma clinic.
While it seems surprising that vaccine resistance exists among medical professionals, even those with sound scientific training, Schaffer said it simply highlights how many Americans are still resistant to vaccination, more than three months after the first blows into the front-line arms. health workers. In February, a survey by experts at Northwestern, Northeastern, Rutgers, and Harvard universities found that 21% of health workers surveyed did not want to be vaccinated. Hesitation, which indicates skepticism about the vaccine, but not an absolute willingness to be vaccinated, was 37 percent.
“There are a large number of people who are not only indifferent, but despise the vaccine, but will not get it. And that is the rest of a covid political approach under the last administration,” Schaffner said. “It’s hard to undo that bell.”
Of course, health workers are not alone among anti-cowboys trying to pass as vaccinated, and on Thursday the Office of the Inspector General warned those who have been vaccinated not to post pictures of their vaccine cards in due to an increase in fake cards.
As more Americans are vaccinated, anti-vaxxers have resorted to social media to spark fears about a future ruled by Biden in which those without a vaccination card will be removed from restaurants, hospitals and even Target.
“If they are giving a card to verify that you are apparently vaccinated, there is a reason for it. You may not be able to go shopping, travel or buy underwear,” TikTok posted truevalor469 from a recliner earlier of this month. “Mmm. Sounds like the beginning. ”
The reaction against Walker and Sparks’ crusade to discover anti-vaxxer health workers at TikTok has been harsh. On Wednesday, Sparks changed her phone number after another TikTok user found her and started harassing her. The threats were so serious that on Friday he had to post a statement on his business website and close the reviews section.
So far there are no government requirements to have a vaccination card, and Schaffner said he has not heard of any private companies requiring them for either their employees or their customers. Yesterday, Rutgers University in New Jersey became the first university to require student immunization, but Schaffner said fears, however widespread, are now exaggerated.
“By falsifying, they avoid a lot of controversy,” he said. “So they’re doing this reprehensible thing to avoid inconvenience and having to explain themselves and be responsible for their actions.”
Walker said he suspects some of the users may not be as serious about counterfeiting vaccines as they are about pursuing the influence of the taboo subject.
“If you post a TikTok saying,‘ Oh, I don’t want to get vaccinated. Sell me a vaccine card, that is, 100,000 automatic views, ”Walker told The Daily Beast.
A TikTok user named linds3r commented on a viral TikTok about counterfeiting vaccination cards, writing, “I have a template if you want” and later, “hehe, I’ve done 8 of them so far ahead and behind “. That user, Lindsey Stauffer, says on Facebook that she is a medical billing employee in the Department of Veterans Affairs of Lebanon, Pennsylvania. He also manufactures and sells anti-Biden and pro-Trump T-shirts from his Facebook page, which includes several of the same images from his TikTok.
Arriving for The Daily Beast, Stauffer admitted to having written the publications, but denied that he had made eight letters.
“I did not write about how to do them. I said I know where you can get one. You can go to Google right now and take pictures, “Stauffer told The Daily Beast.” I’m not doing anything. Everyone can access it. “
Stauffer also denied living in Lebanon, although the phone number was used to reach his lists as an address. She denied having worked at the VA despite including her as an entrepreneur on Facebook. (Veterans Affairs of the Federal Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment). Stauffer also said she had already been vaccinated.
“Then why should I do them?” He told The Daily Beast.
But even when medical professionals joke about counterfeiting vaccination, Schaffner said, it can create problems.
“When people feel that health workers are doing it, it undermines the public’s faith in these institutions and their ability to keep them safe,” Schaffner said.