Californians could win up to $1.5 million as Gavin Newsom announces COVID vaccine lottery
BY WIZANDY BLOG
Vaccinated Californians could win up to $1.5 million in a lottery Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday, part of a $116.5 million effort to persuade more Golden State residents to get their COVID-19 shots.
Ten Californians who got at least one dose will split a $15 million pot on June 15. Vaccinated Californians will also be automatically entered for chances to win $50,000, with 15 winners drawn June 4 and the rest drawn June 11.
All Californians 12 years or older are eligible, except for those incarcerated as well as some state workers and their families. The money will be put in a savings account for minors until they turn 18. Winners must complete their vaccination to claim the prize.
Undocumented Californians as well as other non-citizens are also eligible as long as they live in the state.
With more than 22 million Californians having at least one shot as of Thursday, the odds of winning $1.5 million stands at 1 in 2.2 million. By contrast, the odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot is 1 in 302 million.
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The state is also offering $50 grocery or prepaid gift cards starting Thursday to the next 2 million Californians who begin and complete their vaccination.
As of Thursday, half of Californians over age 12 are fully vaccinated, while another 13% have gotten just one shot, according to state data. Experts have said at least 70% to 80% of the population should have antibodies — whether through vaccines or past infections — for California to reach herd immunity.
After reaching a peak of vaccinating three million people a week, California has seen its pace slow. Only 1.9 million people got the vaccine in the last week, and the number of those seeking their first doses has significantly gone down, Newsom said.
“You can see that cliff coming in the next week or two,” he said. “This is what we’re trying to address.”
People don’t have to register to be eligible for the prizes. Winners can remain confidential, Newsom said. The money will come from the state’s general fund, to be backfilled by the federal government’s coronavirus relief packages, a spokesperson from Newsom’s office said in an e-mail.
Newsom’s announcement comes as states, cities, counties and companies across the country have dangled various incentives to get people vaccinated. CVS Health is launching a sweepstakes with drawings for a trip to the Super Bowl and cruises, among other prizes. The Sacramento River Cats gave free beers to those who got vaccinated at its game.
California’s lottery comes two weeks after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced a $1 million drawing for his own state to encourage more people to get vaccinated, a move that drew national attention and press coverage.
At least four other states — Oregon, New York, Maryland and Colorado — have followed suit.
It’s not yet clear how successful those lotteries have been. After announcing the lottery on May 13, Ohio saw its number of vaccinations increase by 28%, state officials said. But some local officials in Ohio told the New York Times that they haven’t seen significant upticks in the number of people seeking vaccination.
In Ohio, some legislators have pushed to end its lottery, calling it wasteful. John Cox, who’s running against Newsom in a recall election, criticized California’s announcement in a statement.
“Millions of Californians have lost their jobs. Kids are sitting at home instead of in the classroom,” Cox said in his statement. “Instead of addressing those issues, Gavin Newsom is spending more than $100 million to buy votes before the recall.”
But Newsom defended the spending, saying the government costs of managing the pandemic “pale in comparison.”
“I think the worst spending is... burying your head in the sand and continuing to do what you’ve done and not achieve the goals of getting all of us back on our feet,” he said.
Uri Gneezy, a professor at the UC San Diego studying behavioral economics, said he would have preferred Newsom to provide more gift cards to those getting vaccinated, especially to promote spending for local businesses. Doing so would have emphasized the vaccination as promoting collective good for the community, especially given the money comes from California’s taxpayers, he said.
Dangling a large amount of money through lotteries, Gneezy said, could send a wrong signal that the vaccination is risky.
“So if you’re offering me so much money, I can think of, wait a minute, why do you have to pay me? It must be bad for me,” he said. “So they need to be careful, when you design incentives like this, not to send the wrong message.”
WHAT ABOUT EQUITY?
Dr. Jorge Caballero, the co-founder of Coders Against COVID and a clinical instructor of anesthesia at Stanford University, said he thinks California has fallen short in supporting community-based organizations.
He pointed to how MyTurn, California’s website to schedule vaccine appointments, didn’t include many nonprofit community clinics — although the state officials have said the situation has changed. He also wants the state to put more money into community-based organizations, in addition to those vaccine incentives.
“As much as the narrative of the hesitancy may be tempting to grab onto, that just doesn’t bear out,” he said. “The problem becomes what’s holding us up, and it has really been access.”
Monika Lee, a spokeswoman for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, said incentives can’t serve as replacements for the state’s other efforts to connect with its hard-to-reach populations. As of Tuesday, less than a third of Latino and Black Californians were fully vaccinated, compared to nearly half of white Californians.
Lee said California needs to continue creating more mobile pop-up clinics that meet community members where they are, instead of asking them to drive miles away. The state should also continue emphasizing that the vaccine is free, regardless of your health insurance and immigration status, she said.
Lee also said workers may be afraid of taking the time off to get the vaccine and deal with its potential side effects. California should work with community-based organizations to assure workers that they can use their state-provided paid sick leave to get vaccinated, she said.
“A $10 gift card – that’s not going to supplant the wages that they would get from the day’s work,” she said.
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