Apartments and more in vax lotteries

When the Covid vaccination rollout started, the biggest material prize was an Instagramable sticker. Now in Hong Kong, you could score a Tesla or even an apartment in the world’s mostexpensive housing market. With gold bars, a diamond Rolex and a $100,000 shopping spree also up for grabs, Its vaccine lotteries are easily the flashiest. Yet it’s far from the only location rolling out eye-catching incentives to try and boost flagging vaccination rates. Russia’s giving away snowmobiles. West Virginians can score lifetime hunting licences and custom rifles. In Alabama, those vaccinated got offered a chance to drive on a speedway track.

As the delta variant rips through the world, pleas for people to get vaccinated are becoming more forceful in countries fortunate enough to have abundant supplies. Governments and private businesses are trying a range of tactics, from ads featuring reassuring messages from trusted local figures — like doctors or hospital workers — to efforts in places like France to limiting access to public venues.

Giveaways are the less politically fraught option, though they have raised ethical questions. While policymakers don’t expect such incentives to have much effect on the outright skeptical, the hope is they may give those who are procrastinating a push over the line.

But do they push up vaccination rates? Evidence is patchy. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of initial surges. In Hong Kong, the number of residents fully vaccinated against Covid19 has doubled in the last seven weeks to over 2 million people, coinciding with the rollout of a host of private sector incentives. On the other hand, a study of Ohio’s vaccine lottery found no evidence it had increased vaccination take-up though it did suggest rates had slowed less in Ohio than in the US overall.