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.
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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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