Florida Paramedic Accused of Stealing Coronavirus Vaccines | The State
A Latino paramedic from Florida was arrested as an alleged thief of three doses of a covid-19 vaccine.
Joshua Colón, 31, is accused not only of stealing vaccines, but of filling in the necessary documents to be vaccinated on behalf of other people and of providing false information. The subject claimed that his supervisor wanted them for his mother and asked him to do it.
The office of Polk County Sheriff indicated that Colón resigned from his post this Friday and was arrested on Monday, January 25, but was released on bail.
His allegations about the supervisor are being investigated, the Sheriff Grady Judd without reporting the identity of that person, who, he said, is traveling.
Columbus was accused of 15 charges for different types of counterfeiting, in addition to using a personal identity document for criminal purposes and inventing personal identification.
The paramedic was tasked with vaccinating to first aid personnel from a Polk County fire station and doing regulatory paperwork to record who was vaccinated and how the state-free vaccinations were administered.
On January 6, he received three vials of the modern pharmaceutical, with 10 doses each, to vaccinate the firefighters of the town of Davenport.
In his report he wrote that he applied 28 vaccines and two were wasted, then he changed it and put 27 vaccines administered and three missed doses and later he entered into contradictions that aroused the suspicions of the police.
Controversy with supervisor
An investigation was opened and two of those allegedly vaccinated by Colon said they had not received the vaccine, according to police reports.
Colón told the police that, before the vaccines were administered, his supervisor “joked” with him about appropriating some dose for his mother and then asked him to report three doses as useless.
When he went to lunch he left all the vaccines in a refrigerator and labeled and when he returned three were no longer there, but he did not inform the authorities.
In Florida they can only get vaccinated for now health and first aid personnel, those admitted to nursing homes and those who care for them and those over 65 years of age.
There is currently a vaccine shortage in Florida, which makes older people restless and concerned, because at the same time infections and deaths from covid-19 rise.
The White House said Monday that Florida authorities have only distributed to the population half of the vaccines that federal authorities have delivered since December.
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