The governor of Missouri has announced a vaccination lottery to increase vaccination rates in the state that is the US hotspot for the Delta variant of Covid-19.
Mike Parson announced Wednesday that all Missourians age 12 and older are eligible and that over the next three months, 900 state residents who have been vaccinated or who choose to have the chance to earn money or educational savings accounts.
Some residents are “hesitant to get the vaccine, but we all need to take personal responsibility and get our own health and that of our friends and family right by getting vaccinated,” Parson said in a statement.
The governor’s warning that the Delta variant “is transmitted faster than what we’ve seen before and is more likely to affect children and the unvaccinated” came just hours after updated numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the new strain made about 90 per percent of the sequenced genomes in Missouri in the four weeks ending July 3. That is the highest prevalence in the US.
The Missouri Lottery is divided into three categories: adults who received at least one dose of vaccine before July 21, adults who received their first dose after July 21, and teenagers 12 to 17 years of age who received at least one one dose of vaccine at any time.
The first drawing takes place on August 13th, then every 14 days until October 8th. Every 14 days, 80 winners from each of the two adult categories will be selected at random. These 160 people will each receive a cash prize of US $ 10,000. In addition, another 80 winners will be drawn from the pool of young people: They will receive a $ 10,000 education savings account.
In addition, local health officials who deliver Covid-19 vaccines are now eligible to provide a financial incentive of up to $ 25 for each vaccine recipient through the end of this year, up to a total of $ 11 million, the office said Parson in a report with an opinion.
That’s enough to cover the administration of another 440,000 vaccinations across the state, which has already administered approximately 5.3 million vaccine doses. Missouri has 40.3 percent of its population fully vaccinated, ranking 38th in the United States.
Several states have run vaccination lotteries in the past few months to increase vaccination rates, some of which are offering millions of dollars Cash prices and weapons as incentives. Ohio, the first state to announce an vaccination lottery, is expected this week Reveal plans for a second program to increase vaccine uptake.
