Authorities in northern Germany have appealed to 8,600 people to get another shot of COVID vaccine after a police investigation found that a Red Cross nurse may have injected them with a saline solution.
According to The Guardian, the nurse is suspected of injecting a salt solution into peopleʼs arms instead of genuine doses at a vaccination centre in Friesland – a rural district near the North Sea coast – in the early spring.
The authorities alerted the public on Tuesday, saying about 8,600 residents might have been affected.
While saline solution is harmless, most people who got vaccinated in Germany in March and April when the suspected switch took place were elderly and at high risk of catching COVID.
A police investigator said that based on witness statements there was “a reasonable suspicion of danger”.
The motive of the nurse, who was not named, was not clear, noted The Guardian, but she had aired sceptical views about vaccines in social media posts, police investigators said. It was not immediately clear whether she had been arrested or charged in the case, which according to broadcaster NDR has been handed to a special unit that investigates politically motivated crimes.
Nurse in Germany suspected of replacing Covid vaccines with saline solution
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