States try variety of incentives to get more vaccinated
7-figure lottery pots, gun raffles among prizes
Lotteries, scholarships, pre-paid grocery cards, fishing and hunting licenses, passes to state parks, even custom hunting rifles and shotguns are among the incentives that states are offering to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
At least five states – California, Colorado, Ohio, Oregon and West Virginia – are automatically entering people who have been vaccinated into lotteries that pay out $1 million or more.
Ten people in California are set to win $1.5 million each on Tuesday, according to a list compiled by the National Governors Association. And after the lottery, the next 2 million residents to get vaccinated will receive $50 pre-paid grocery cards.
Delaware, Ohio, Oregon and West Virginia are offering college scholarships for students ages 12 to 17.
West Virginia gets credit for having the most creative incentives. They include two custom trucks, five lifetime hunting and fishing licenses, five custom hunting rifles and five custom shotguns.
It is also offering a $100 savings bond or $10 gift card to anyone between the ages of 16 and 35 who has been vaccinated – and that’s in addition to its lottery for $1 million.
Wisconsin is offering nothing comparable to making a few people millionaires or even lifetime fishing and hunting licenses.
But people who got vaccinated at
the plaza at the Fiserv Forum on Thursday will be entered into a raffle for two tickets to the Bucks playoff game on Sunday.
The ‘spaghetti approach’
Whether the incentives persuade people to get vaccinated is unclear.
“The lotteries get headlines and get a lot attention – which is part actually of their impact,” said Josh Michaud, an epidemiologist and associate director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But it is really hard to disentangle their effect on actual vaccination rates.”
The incentives are part of the push to reach people who are not steadfastly opposed to the vaccines but for varying reasons have yet to get one.
“At this point, most states are taking the ‘spaghetti approach’ – throwing everything they can at the wall and seeing what sticks,” Michaud said. “The remaining pool of people who are unvaccinated are not just one block, and one incentive is not going to change the minds of everyone who is unvaccinated.”
President Joe Biden has set the goal of vaccinating 70% of adults by July 4. That goal is within reach. Thirteen states reportedly have hit that mark. And the national rate for adults stands at 63.8%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But hitting that goal is not a sure thing. And national and state averages can be misleading.
“There’s a lot of variation across states and even within states,” said Hemi Tewarson, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.
That can be seen in Wisconsin. The state trails the national average slightly. As of Tuesday, 48.6% of the state’s total population – as opposed to just adults – had received at least one COVID-19 shot. The national average was 51.7% that day. But the percentage varied from 26.7% in Taylor County to 67.2% in Dane County.
The pace of vaccinations in some places also has slowed to a crawl.
“That dynamic is playing out across the country,” said Michaud of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Benefits vs. costs
The benefits of getting people vaccinated are likely to more than offset the cost of the incentives, Michaud said. They include the avoided cost of hospitalizations and deaths. And they include reducing the transmission of the virus in the community.
“Every vaccination,” he said, “is highly valuable.”
In all likelihood, at least some people who are indifferent or have not made getting the vaccine a priority could be nudged by the prospect of a $50 or $100 gift card.
“You are unlikely to change minds of people who are dead set against getting the vaccine,” Michaud said. “So you do have to work with people who are on the fence.”
For people with specific concerns about the vaccine, the equivalent of a lottery ticket probably won’t be as persuasive as a conversation with a physician or other health care provider. And some people face barriers gaining access to vaccines, including transportation and child care.
For this reason, states also are focusing on specific strategies to reach people – what Tewarson of the National Academy for State Health Policy called “micro-targeting.”
“It’s community-by-community,” she said, “and the thing about that approach is, it is slower.”
Signs are encouraging
Vaccinations reportedly have surged in the past month among young people.
And a poll published on May 28 by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the percentage of unvaccinated people who said they will “wait and see” fell slightly to 12%, down from 15%.
About a third of people in that group – about 4% of all adults – said they had already scheduled an appointment or plan to get the vaccine in the next three months.
And almost one-third – 32% – of unvaccinated adults said that full approval by the Federal Food and Drug Administration of one of the vaccines would make them more likely to get vaccinated. The vaccines currently are authorized for emergency use.
A ‘massive, uneven achievement’
Obstacles to increasing the vaccination rate remain.
For one thing, the declining number of COVID-19 cases has lessened the motivation to get vaccinated, Tewarson said.
The incentives could help offset that. The work being done to directly reach people also helps. So, too, does the work by private employers to encourage workers to get vaccinated.
“You put all those together and it’s hard to know what has made a difference,” Michaud said. “But collectively they are making a difference in getting more people to get vaccinated.”
Ad campaigns also still have a place, he said. An estimated 20% of people, for instance, believe the vaccine costs money.
“It’s just that it’s a much tougher job now,” Michaud said.
The incentives and push to reach people who can be persuaded to get the vaccine will have its limits.
“There is going to be a patchwork of immunity,” he said.
There will be pools of unvaccinated people. And going into the fall and winter local outbreaks are likely.
“We are well on our way to vaccinating a very significant portion of the U.S. population – which is a massive achievement,” Michaud said. “We have to recognize that. But it is going to be an uneven achievement.”