California’s huge COVID-19 vaccine expansion relies on trust. Will cheaters stay away?

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, director of the medical ethics program at UC Irvine and a member of the vaccine task force in Orange County, said implementing stricter requirements like doctors’ notes would have overwhelmed medical offices and, more significantly, left large swaths of people out in the cold. “The challenge is, if we make the verification criteria too strict, it becomes too onerous and cumbersome to actually implement on the ground, and people are really bogged down in all kinds of red tape,” he said.