Report: German police see surge in fake vaccine certificates

BERLIN (AP) — German news agency dpa has reported that police are investigating thousands of cases of suspected forgery of coronavirus vaccine certificates. The dpa report on Wednesday cited figures obtained from the country’s 16 states showing more than 12,000 police investigations have been opened nationwide. Dpa reported that the number of probes surged in December after authorities announced new restrictions that largely locked unvaccinated people out of public life. Almost 73% of the German population have received a full course of vaccines against COVID-19 while nearly 48 % have had an additional booster shot. Germany saw a new record number of confirmed cases Wednesday. The country’s disease control agency reported 112,323 new infections in the past 24 hours, and 239 COVID-related deaths.