With Covid cases climbing, New York City officials think they know what will motivate citizens to get vaccinated quickly–cold hard cash.
Starting this Friday, New York City will pay $100 to anyone who goes to a city-run vaccination site for their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
The announcement comes just days after de Blasio said all city workers would have to be vaccinated or go through strict weekly testing protocols.
The incentive is also being offered amid a surge in cases in the city, driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus, NBC New York reports. Last Friday, the rolling average of new daily cases was 32% higher than a week prior.
According to New York State Department of Health data, between 45% and 65% of New Yorkers are fully vaccinated, depending on the borough.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that cities in high-transmission areas — which definitely includes New York City — should “seriously consider” adopting the CDC’s new guidelines on indoor masking for vaccinated people, though it was not necessarily a mandate.
If $100 seems like a nice chunk of change, other states have offered far much more dough to get vaccinated.
Back in May, Ohio’s governor announced that getting vaccinated was an automatic entry into a $1 million lottery for adults. Teenagers who got vaccinated were entered into a separate raffle that offered a full-ride scholarship to any school in the state as the prize.
“I know that some may say, ‘DeWine, you’re crazy! This million-dollar drawing idea of yours is a waste of money.’ But truly, the real waste at this point in the pandemic — when the vaccine is readily available to anyone who wants it — is a life lost to COVID-19,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine wrote.
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