New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law a bill that would make falsification of COVID-19 vaccination cards a crime.

According to the governor's office, a COVID-19 vaccination card shall be considered a written instrument for purposes of the forgery statute. Falsifying a card will carry a penalty of a class A misdemeanor. 

It also creates a new class E felony of computer tampering in the third degree for intentional entering, alteration or destruction of "computer material" regarding COVID-19 vaccine provisions.

Hochul also signed legislation that

• requires the Department of Health to allow every school access to the immunization records for their students
• directs the state health commissioner to conduct a study of the delivery of ambulatory care and other medical care in response to the pandemic
• directs the Department of Financial Services to conduct a study on impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on underbanked and underserved areas, small businesses and minority- and women-owned business enterprises getting loans. 

"We need to make sure we learn the lessons of the pandemic so we don't make the same mistakes twice," Hochul said. "These new laws will help us improve our response to the pandemic now, crack down on fraudulent use of vaccination records, and help us better understand the areas of improvement we need to make to our health care system so we can be even more prepared down the road."