Passing off another person's vaccination certificate as your own is illegal, and the authorities are aware that such a practice is going on, said Minister for Health Ong Ye Kung on Aug. 11.

Ong added that these offenders will face a "severe penalty" if they are caught.

"It is not worth it. Take a pre-event test (PET) if you have to attend a dinner or event."

The health minister was answering some "top-of-mind" questions in a Facebook post following the resumption of dining-in on Aug. 10.

Here are the rest of the questions that he answered:

1️⃣ If I cannot take the vaccine, how can I join my family for meals at restaurants?

Take a PET (pre-event test) at an MOH approved test provider. It costs about S$20, valid for 24 hours. But that merely shows you are not likely to have the virus. It does not protect you from being infected. So please be careful.

2️⃣ What about children 12 and below who cannot be vaccinated yet, can they join in?

As long as they are from the same household, children 12 and below can join the dine-in group of up to 5.

3️⃣ What should I do next if I have allergic reactions after taking the first dose?

You will be invited to take the Sinovac. Two doses and two weeks later, you will be considered fully vaccinated.

If you have not been invited, go to any vaccination centre to verify that you cannot receive the second dose due to the allergy, and an SMS invite will be sent to you.

4️⃣ But if I do not want to take Sinovac, when will there be other non-mRNA vaccines that I can consider?

We have also secured Novavax, supplies are expected to start arriving before the end of this year.

5️⃣ What if my vaccination was from overseas?

Go to a clinic at the following link.

Present your overseas vaccination records, and get a serology test. Once positive (i.e. you have antibodies), your overseas vaccination records will be uploaded into HealthHub and TraceTogether app.

If you took a Pfizer-BioNTech/ Comirnaty or Moderna vaccine, this update will take about two days after your medical provider has submitted the details into the National Immunisation Registry.

If you took other WHO EUL vaccines (eg AstraZeneca, Janssen, Sinopharm, Sinovac), the records will be reflected on HealthHub app for now. We are working on uploading to TraceTogether app as well, and this will be ready by end August.

You can read Ong's full Facebook post below. In the meantime, Mothership has reached out to the Ministry of Health for more information on the severe penalty that someone might face if they were to pass off another person's vaccination certificate as their own.

Top image credit: Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images