Illinois to offer $7 million in cash and $3 million in scholarships in lottery for residents who’ve received a COVID-19 vaccination
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In the latest effort to persuade people to get their shot, Illinois will offer $7 million in cash prizes and $3 million in college scholarships through a lottery open to residents who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the state, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Thursday.
The money, taken from federal coronavirus relief funds, will be given out through weekly drawings beginning July 8.
Vaccinated residents don’t have to enter to qualify for prizes of up to $1 million. Winners will be drawn from state vaccination records. There will be three $1 million cash prizes and another 40 $100,000 prizes, and 20 kids ages 12 to 17 will win a Bright Start college savings plan worth $150,000.
“Each additional person who gets vaccinated — and here in Illinois we’re averaging thousands of first doses each day — makes our state, our towns, our neighborhoods and our families that much safer,” Pritzker said. “So we’re working hard to make that happen. And now we have 10 million reasons in hand.”
Anyone who has received at least one dose of a vaccination administered in Illinois, other than at a federal facility such as a prison or veterans hospital, is automatically eligible. Residents who got their shots at sites run supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, including the United Center mass vaccination facility, are eligible.
The lottery, dubbed “All In for the Win,” is the state’s latest effort to encourage the reluctant to get vaccinated. Pritzker previously signed a measure that allows bars and restaurants to give out a free drink to those of legal age, and the state also has partnered with Six Flags to give out free amusement park tickets, among other incentives.
During the first drawing July 8, one $1 million winner 18 or older will be chosen statewide, along with three winners of the $150,000 scholarships. Residents must have received their first shot by July 1 to be eligible for the initial drawing.
From July 12 through Aug. 16, three $100,000 cash winners will be chosen each Monday from a statewide pool. On Aug. 12, two $100,000 winners will be chosen from each of the 11 regions designated in Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” reopening plan.
The lottery will wrap up Aug. 26, with the selection of two more $1 millions winners chosen statewide and 17 additional winners of the $150,000 scholarships — one selected from each region and six more chosen statewide.
More details are available at allin.illinois.gov.
A number of states have launched lotteries to encourage vaccinations. In Ohio, there was a 43% jump in statewide vaccinations after Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s May 12 announcement of the $1 million prize. However, numbers have again dropped since then.
Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said that while there is a group of people who likely will never get vaccinated, she believes many of the 3 million eligible Illinois residents who’ve yet to get a shot are in the “movable middle, where they just need a nudge.”
“Maybe the chance to win $100,000 or a million dollars or a college scholarship for their child is just that nudge to get them off of their seat,” Ezike said.
More than 6.3 million adults have received at least one vaccine dose administered in Illinois, along with nearly 362,000 children ages 12 to 17, according to state data. In all, more than half of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated, with two-thirds having received at least one shot, either in Illinois or out of state.
While Illinois is outpacing nearly all its neighbors in the vaccination effort, Ezike said, “we can’t stop here.”
Getting as many of the remaining unvaccinated residents to get the shot is the state’s best chance of stopping transmission and preventing the mutation of a possible vaccine-resistant variant, she said.
“I know we’re in phase five (of Pritzker’s reopening plan) and things are looking good and capacity limits have gone away, but the pandemic has not gone away,” Ezike said. “It’s not over.”
State health officials have identified 64 cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, a strain first found in India that federal health officials have labeled a “variant of concern.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues the warning for variants that have evidence of an increased transmissibility or that cause a more severe disease, among other factors. Other common variants have been given the same label.
Pritzker said at an separate news conference earlier Thursday that his main concern regarding the Delta variant is for children younger than 12, for whom a vaccine has yet to be authorized.
“The Delta variant seems to have been most predominant among people who are unvaccinated, and so those kids are who I’m focused on,” Pritzker said.
The good news for the wider population is that, “so far anyway, it appears that the available vaccines are resistant to the Delta variant,” he said.
Despite the lottery announcement, Pritzker said, “COVID-19 is not a game.”
The state reported another 16 fatalities Thursday, bringing the overall death toll to 23,120 since the pandemic began.
But new infections continue to decline, with 248 new confirmed and probable cases reported Thursday, bringing the average of new daily cases over the past week to 280. That’s the lowest level since the week ending March 25, 2020, when the average was 225 cases per day, though testing was severely limited in the early days of the first surge.
One month ago, the state was averaging 1,546 new cases per day.
Chicago Tribune’s Madeline Buckley contributed.
