State names final VaxMillions winners
Over 4.4 million Massachusetts residents have received two vaccination doses, and 5 million have received at least one, including the one-dose Johnson & Johnson.
If you haven’t been a lucky VaxMillions winner for getting your COVID-19 shot already, you’re out of luck.
The final VaxMillions lottery winners were announced Thursday: Cynthia Thirath of Leominster, who won the $1 million prize, and Gretchen Selva of Conway, the recipient of a $300,000 scholarship.
One of the 10 winners was extra lucky, winning on a second chance draw of the prize.
As the Herald reported yesterday, a would-be winner missed a potential million-dollar phone call and failed to claim the prize after the state attempted to make contact multiple times in the allotted 24hour window.
Officials would not say which age bracket the person was in, or which week this happened.
In total, 2.3 million vaccinated adults and 167,000 vaccinated teens from ages 12 to 17 signed up for the lottery.
Thirath, who won the final $1 million prize, said she will use the winnings “to invest in her future,” according to a press release, and encourages others to get vaccinated too.
Selva, who won the final scholarship, will soon be a sophomore at Four River Charter Public School in Greenfield. She has been playing guitar for over three years, and said she plans to attend a college program focused on music writing and production in New England. The release said she was vaccinated “as soon as she was eligible.”
“Over 440,000 residents became fully vaccinated during the time that the VaxMillions program was running, and we are grateful to our partners at the Treasury and the Massachusetts State Lottery in helping to launch this program,” said Gov. Charlie Baker, though it is unclear if those sign-ups were directly triggered by the launch of VaxMillions.
Over 4.4 million Massachusetts residents have received two vaccination doses, and 5 million have received at least one, including the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.