Want to get folks vaccinated? Try giving them an incentive.
And for the state of West Virginia, those incentives include guns, trucks, and cold hard cash.
According to CBS News, the state of West Virginia is instituting weekly lottery drawings for cash, trucks, guns and scholarships for anybody that gets the vaccine show.
Beginning on June 20, West Virginia is looking to hand out $1 million in cash and other prizes, each week up until August 4th, when two grand prizes of nearly $1.6 million and $580,000 will be awarded.
The Prize List
The list of other prizes includes:
Two new custom-outfitted trucks, 25 weekend getaways to local state parks, five lifetime hunting and fishing licenses, five custom hunting rifles and five custom hunting shotguns.
Two full four-year scholarships to any institution in West Virginia will also be awarded to anyone between the ages of 12 and 25, who elect to get vaccinated.
According to West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, the incentive program is all about public health:
“The prizes to me are secondary to the fact that we’re trying to save your life.
All of our hospitalizations, all of all our our ICU units, all of our deaths, for the most part, are all people that have not been vaccinated. I don’t know how it gets any simpler than that.
These vaccinations are amazingly safe and they’ll protect you… I don’t know how in the world people are sitting on the sidelines still saying, ‘no, I’m not going to do one, I’m not going to do it,’ then they go off and they travel.
If you step back and think, now why in the world would you have to give away something to get somebody vaccinated. Unfortunately it’s the way of the world in a lot of situations. The faster we get them across the finish line, the more lives we save.”
I mean, it doesn’t get more West Virginia than that.
Plenty of states have launched incentive programs as well as prize lotteries to urge folks to get vaccinated, but West Virginia is really speaking to the people here.
Custom Rocky Ridge Ford F-150s, custom rifles and shotguns, hunting and fishing licenses, and millions of dollars… that’ll grab some attention. I mean, I’m not sure what Illinois is doing here, but I can only imagine it’s some bullshit trip to Navy Pier.
Here’s the full press conference:
And speaking of West Virginia, how about the classic West Virginia Tourism video.
