CA Offers $116M In Prizes For Getting Vaccinated

LOS ANGELES, CA — California will offer a chance to win $116.5 million in prizes to all vaccinated residents in the nation's most ambitious effort to sway people reluctant to get the coronavirus shot.

The plan announced Thursday will give residents a chance to win one of 10 $1.5 million cash prizes. The winners will be chosen June 15, the day California is set to fully reopen the economy. Other prizes include 30 $50,000 cash prizes with the winners to be selected on June 4 and June 11.

“Some Californians weren’t ready to get their COVID-19 vaccine on day one, and that’s OK,” California Department of Public Health Director Tomás Aragón said in a statement. “This program is designed to encourage those who need extra support to get vaccinated and help keep California safe.”

Anyone who has had at least one coronavirus vaccination shot by the date of the drawing will be entered to win.

The state will also offer additional incentives for people getting their first shot in the upcoming weeks. The next 2 million people who begin and finish their shot series will be eligible for either a $50 prepaid card or a $50 grocery gift card good at supermarkets across the state including chains such as Vons, Ralphs, Safeway, Food 4 Less, Albertsons, Pavilions, and Andronico’s.

Newsom hinted weeks ago that a vaccine incentive was in the works for California.

“We were ready to do that a couple of weeks ago, but our numbers were holding pretty firmly,” Newsom told KRON4.

He blamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's updated guidelines for masks as causing a decline in people wanting to get vaccinated in California.

“I think the message on the mask mandate, interestingly I think, did the opposite of what was intended, which was to encourage people to get vaccinated,” Newsom said.

More than 50 percent of California's population is fully vaccinated, which is higher than the national average. Another 12.9 percent are partially vaccinated. But statewide vaccinations have slowed dramatically in recent weeks. State officials estimate that 12 million residents eligible for the vaccine still haven't gotten the shot.

The vaccine shortage gave way to a nationwide surplus in April, and health departments across the country began offering incentives to induce the vaccine hesitant to get a shot. States such as Oregon, New York and Ohio have offered lottery tickets to those who have been vaccinated. New Jersey and Illinois have offered free beer to adults who get vaccinated.

Closer to home, several county and city health departments offered their own incentives. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health offered a chance to win Lakers season tickets to people who got vaccinated within a certain window. Long Beach health department officials teamed up with local hotels to offer a chance to win weekend getaways or a free Nintendo Switch for residents willing to get their first shot.

The most famous vaccine "bribe" was Ohio’s $1 million “Vax-a-Million” lottery, which awarded its first prize on Wednesday to a 22-year-old engineer. More than 2.7 million people registered to win the vaccine lottery in Ohio. The state also offered the vaccinated a chance to enter sweepstakes for full college scholarships, and more than 104,000 people entered. Vaccination rates doubled in some Ohio counties after the vaccine lottery was announced, the state said.

Critics contended that the prizes did little to sway people who had already decided not to get the vaccine. They accused the state of wasting resources on prizes for people who needed no inducement to get inoculated.

Indeed, Ohio’s first vaccine lottery winner had already gotten her first shot by the time the lottery was announced. But officials hoped her story will compel others to get vaccinated for a chance to win $1 million next week.

“I thought it was a prank call initially,” Vax-a-Million winner Abbigail Bugenske told The New York Times. “I was screaming enough that my parents thought that I was crying and that something was wrong. I started yelling that I won a million dollars, and I was going to be a millionaire. ... I would encourage anyone to get the vaccine. If winning a million dollars isn’t incentive enough, I don’t really know what would be.”

Ohio’s scholarship sweepstakes is specifically targeted at the youngest segment of the population eligible for the vaccine. It’s a group with the lowest vaccine rates nationwide.