‘I feel so lucky.’ First winners announced in Kentucky’s million-dollar vaccine lottery
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Patricia Short’s family was concerned she might be getting scammed, when Gov. Andy Beshear’s office called them in hopes of surprising her with the news that she would get $1 million from the state for getting her COVID-19 vaccine.
“We had to tell them a lot more than we originally wanted to for it to be a surprise to get to all the people who love and care about them to make sure they weren’t being scammed,” Beshear said.
But there she was Friday, with her husband Brad, $1 million richer and facing down the cameras as the first Kentuckian to win the state’s vaccine lottery drawing.
“It happened,” Short said, a little awestruck by the moment. “It’s real.”
Beshear said the money would make a big difference for Short, who lives in the Lexington area and was one of the many Kentuckians who struggled to collect unemployment from the state’s troubled unemployment system.
Beshear’s office launched the $1 million vaccination incentive — along with an offer of full-ride scholarships to 15 Kentucky children — on June 4, taking the cue from similar programs in neighboring states as the Kentucky’s vaccination rate had started to slow down. What had originally been a run on COVID-19 appointments in the spring had turned into a leisurely stroll as the state butted up against vaccine hesitancy through much of the state.
It is difficult to measure how well the program worked, as several of the people who won Friday had already gotten their shots before the program was announced, but the incentive doesn’t appear to have done much to increase Kentucky’s vaccination rate.
The state hit 50 percent of all residents vaccinated Friday and only around 60 percent of Kentucky adults have gotten the vaccine compared to around 80 percent in states like Massachusetts and Vermont. In the month of June, around 132,000 people were vaccinated in Kentucky, which is fewer people than were vaccinated in a single week in the month of March.
Beshear said he was confident that the numbers would have been worse had the incentive program not gotten unveiled.
“I have no doubt that our vaccination numbers would be lower without it,” Beshear said. “It’s always going to be hard to know what if we didn’t do it, but we are confident that we are seeing a boost.”
While the incentive may help prevent a big dip in vaccinations, Beshear said his goal is to “grind it out” and get thousands a week over several weeks as they try to reach a part of the population who may be skeptical about the vaccine. He said getting the vaccine to more doctor’s offices would be helpful in getting people vaccinated and he hopes there’s a boost after Friday’s drawing.
Even with many Kentuckians reluctant to get the vaccine, the number of COVID-19 cases in the state has been dropping for months. Last week, 1,199 cases were announced, the lowest amount in a week since the end of May 2020. The number of people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 increased slightly Thursday to 201, but is still lower than when the state first started tracking COVID-19 hospitalizations last April.
Beshear also announced five of what will be 15 winners of a full-ride scholarship to one of Kentucky’s state colleges and universities. They were Jalen Crudup of Elizabethtown, Crystal Frost of Crestwood, Tyler Henson of Mt. Sterling, Adison Sullenger of Princeton and Alex VonderHaar of Louisville.
Three of the winners were rising seniors who hadn’t decided where they would be heading to college yet. Frost, who goes to Oldham County High School, said she was at work when she got a Facetime call from Beshear’s office.
“I feel so lucky,” Frost said. “All I did was get vaccinated. I thought it was a smart decision and clearly it paid off.”
After the trip down to Frankfort, Frost was scheduled to take her drivers test. When she was asked which was more exciting, her drivers license or the scholarship money, she had to think about it.
“The money,” she said after a short pause.
The next drawing for the scholarship money and $1 million is on July 30. People who have already entered the contest do not need to enter again.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 2:23 PM.
