- There it drops.
18.
- [Narrator] Depending on where you live,
getting the vaccine means the chance
at a check like this.
- That's right, you could win $1 million.
- How about a chance to win a million dollars?
- The winner each Wednesday will receive $1 million.
- [Narrator] Faced with falling vaccination rates,
states across the US
are rolling out incentives to get residents
to roll up their sleeves.
- Are we ready?
- [Narrator] But are these offers working
and are they worth the cost?
- Stay safe, Ohio.
- We needed to just shake things up.
We needed to bring some excitement
and I felt that a million dollars
would bring excitement.
- [Reporter] What a night it is for you.
- [Narrator] Lotteries like this one in Ohio
are part of a ballooning list
of vaccine incentives
that has included free doughnuts, free beer,
fishing licenses, baseball tickets,
a lap around Talladega Superspeedway and.
- We're gonna give five custom hunting rifles
and five custom hunting shotguns away.
- [Narrator] Many of these freebies
and lotteries started popping up last month
as the rate of vaccination in the US slumped
to about half of what it was at its peak in April.
- It's not surprising that we've reached a point
where the supply of vaccines far exceeds demand
and it's time to start getting creative
about how to get some of the stragglers
over the finish line.
But at the same time,
we have to be very clear eyed
about what these incentives can and can't do.
- How you y'all doing? - Hey, how are you?
- [Narrator] When Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced
the Vax-a-Million Lottery on May 12th,
it was the first of its kind,
offering adults a chance
to win one of five one million dollar prizes
and teens a chance to win one
of five full-ride scholarships.
- We were going down, down, down.
And we couldn't break it.
And no matter what we did.
So we didn't know what else to do.
So we came up with this idea,
having no guarantee that it would work.
- [Narrator] Experts like Dr. Emily Largent,
who researches how incentives
are used in medical studies say lotteries
won't motivate everyone.
- This is not a cure-all,
this is something fun,
it makes sense to try
but we shouldn't count on this
as being the magic bullet.
- [Narrator] Recent polling shows about 12%
of Americans still plan to wait and see
before getting the vaccine.
Of those, only a small number said
they would be motivated to do so
by guaranteed incentives
like $100 from their state
or free tickets to a sporting event or concert.
These offers and lotteries
may even trigger the opposite response.
- In some instances,
offering large amounts of money
to do something that people perceive as risky
or burdensome can make them feel like it's even riskier
or more burdensome than it actually is.
- [Narrator] Some lawmakers call these cash offers a bribe.
But Dr. Largent says she's not worried
about these incentives taking away an individual's choice.
- The bigger concerns really are
that they can distract from all the work
that needs to be going in
to trying to promote vaccination in the community.
- [Narrator] That includes providing further education
and access to vaccines.
The lottery, she says, should only be part
of a broader toolkit to promote vaccination.
But if these incentives are the right use of money
is heavily debated.
In Ohio's case, the $5 million lottery
was pulled from federal coronavirus relief funds.
- I knew at the time that we announced it,
people were gonna say, "DeWine is crazy."
They were gonna say that's a waste of money.
But the real waste is for people to continue to die.
- [Narrator] Ohio resident, Jessica Nagy,
who got her shot before the lottery announcement
says the money was well spent.
- It could have spent on advertising
or marketing to educate people on the vaccine
but I mean, how effective would that really be
when anybody can get on Facebook
or social media and say anything they want?
- I got my COVID vaccine.
- So have I. - I have too.
- [Narrator] But so far,
Ohio has spent more than $11 million
on traditional advertising to promote vaccination.
- Taking a relatively small amount of money
in the scheme of things,
like $5 million for incentives in Ohio
and offering it in this way
that's drawn so much attention
has a real multiplier effect.
This has drawn attention
not only in the State of Ohio but nationally.
- Ohio Governor Mike DeWine
has unlocked a secret.
- [Narrator] In the week leading up
to the lottery announcement,
Ohio averaged 13,400 new vaccinations a day, then.
- A couple days after we announced it,
we were starting to see in our numbers going up.
- [Narrator] In the week following,
an average of 26,500 Ohioans
were getting their first shot each day,
a number caveated by the fact
that teens aged 12 to 15 were newly eligible
for the vaccine.
But still, the state reported a 28% week-over-week increase
in vaccination rates among those 16
and older the weekend after the announcement.
- Incentives make sense for some people.
They're likely to be motivating for individuals
who are say young and healthy.
Though vaccination, they're not opposed to it,
but it's not really a priority for them.
So offering something that is a tangible benefit
can help get them there sooner.
- [Narrator] Nagy had initially planned to wait
to get her 12 and 14-year-olds their shots.
- With myself, I thought a lot more comfortable just going
and getting the vaccine with my kids.
I did kinda wanna see like nothing popping up
like crazy side effects or anything like that.
- [Narrator] But after hearing about Vax-a-Million.
- I thought why not?
A free ride to college sounds great.
Why wait?
I knew I was gonna probably do it anyway,
so yeah, I thought that would be awesome.
So I just went ahead and got 'em vaccinated.
- [Narrator] That said, momentum from the campaign in Ohio
may be slowing.
In the week following the drawing
of the first winner,
the state's daily average of new vaccinations
was back down to about 11,000.
- I think seeing the winners out there
is gonna continue to generate some excitement
but if it doesn't do anything else
besides what it's already done, it's been worth it.
- [Narrator] One potential downside
for states offering big prizes still looms
as it appears increasingly likely boosters
will be needed to maintain protection from the virus.
- We talk about the spoonful
of sugar helping the medicine go down
but if you can only get people to take the medicine
with the sugar, you have habituated them to that.
We might be creating a precedent now
for something that can be expensive
and potentially inefficient in the future.
- [Narrator] Setting a precedent
doesn't worry Governor DeWine
who's focused on getting shots in arms now
as his state still lags behind the national average.
- Not every decision we've made
has been write but it's been based
on the best facts that we could gather.
And so are we gonna offer this in the future?
I don't know.
But we're gonna continue to do what it takes
to knock this virus down.
- [Narrator] As she did with her initial vaccination,
Nagy says she won't wait for an incentive
before getting a booster.
- Yeah, I definitely wouldn't expect it
but if it happens, great.
A happy correlation.