You could win $1 million … but only if you’re vaccinated against COVID-19, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown says

Gov. Kate Brown announced Friday lottery prizes ranging from $10,000 to $1 million for Oregonians vaccinated against COVID-19 – a strategy meant to address the dramatically decreasing numbers of residents immunized each day.

All residents 18 and older who’ve received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine by June 27 will be entered into the “Take Your Shot Oregon” lottery, which will be held on June 28.

One lucky vaccinated Oregonian will receive a $1 million jackpot. Thirty-six others – one from each Oregon county – will win $10,000 prizes. That means residents in the least populated counties – tiny Wheeler County has just 1,440 residents – will have a far better chance of winning a $10,000 prize than residents in the most populous counties. Multnomah County is the largest with about 830,000 residents.

Oregon Lottery rules don’t allow anyone under 18 to participate in the cash drawings, but a special drawing will be held for vaccinated youth ages 12 to 17. Five winners will each receive $100,000 contributions to Oregon College Savings Plan accounts in their names. The money can be used for college or trade schools.

Winners will be announced about a week later, most likely by July 4.

As of Friday, 52% of Oregonians have been partially vaccinated and 40% have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The average daily number of shots administered peaked at about 43,000 on April 11, but have plunged to below 30,000 in recent days. Nationwide, the rate of inoculations has fallen even faster.

Experts say herd immunity – the point that the coronavirus can no longer spread because there are so few hosts – is estimated at between 70% to 85% people immune either through vaccinations or natural protection gained from past bouts with the disease. Given plummeting numbers, many epidemiologists and others are skeptical the United States will ever reach herd immunity.

“We will need to pull on every lever we have,” Brown said, during a live-streamed news conference. “So if you’ve been waiting to get a vaccine or you just haven’t gotten around to it yet, we’re going to give you an extra incentive. How about a chance to win a million dollars?”

Brown added: “It can save your life and just maybe make you a millionaire.”

The new lottery will cost the state $1.86 million, tapped from $2.6 billion in federal coronavirus relief money allocated to Oregon this year.

Although Brown said Oregon has been exploring the idea for weeks, after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine became the first in the nation to announce a COVID-19 vaccination lottery last week, Brown said Oregon officials contacted Ohio officials for details. DeWine said his state will hold a $1 million lottery each week for five weeks – randomly selecting names from voter registration rolls and giving away the cash only to winners who are vaccinated. A similar Ohio drawing will offer four years of free state tuition, room, board and books to the college-bound.

Within a day of Ohio’s announcement, vaccinations began to jump. Within a week they’d surged by 28%.

In Ohio, it’s possible that some of the names drawn will be of people who are not vaccinated. If that’s the case, Ohio will apparently draw new names, until winners who actually are vaccinated have been selected. That – avoiding the disappointment that would come with even the very slim chance of being selected and declared ineligible – could conceivably serve as extra motivation to get vaccinated.

In Oregon, the process will be different. Only vaccinated people will be entered into the new lottery, which will use names from the Oregon Health Authority’s database of people immunized against COVID-19. But officials want to be careful about protecting privacy, so the health authority will only give lottery officials individual identification numbers The lottery will draw from those numbers, then notify the health authority of the winners.

Winners will have the option of declining the prize money. The names of Oregonians who accept money will be made public.

At least one state, Maryland, has followed Ohio’s lead by announcing it will award $40,000 a day for 40 days to vaccinated residents. The state will top that off with a $400,000 grand prize on the 41st day.

New York also has followed suit, though it hasn’t created a new lottery. Rather, it’s gifting each newly vaccinated resident next week with a $20 scratch-it ticket, for a chance at winning $5 million.

On the flip side, it seems some states will most likely not be embracing lottery incentives. In Utah, where lotteries are prohibited, Gov. Spencer Cox expressed interest in the idea but some state lawmakers say the idea is a no-go.

The “Take Your Shot Oregon” campaign appears to generating widespread excitement, but some critics have likened it to a bribe to get vaccinated. A key presenter at Brown’s news conference Friday disagreed.

“This is not meant to be a bribe. It’s an incentive,” said Ashby Monk, who is executive director of the Stanford Global Projects Center and has studied ways to motivate people to make decisions that benefit themselves and society. He said campaigns to encourage certain behaviors are far more successful if they’re based on incentives rather than fear, such as, in this case, reiterating the consequences of not getting shots.

“I think people can opt out,” Monk said. “They don’t have to play the lottery if they don’t find the incentive appealing.”

Of opting out, Monk added: “I don’t think many people will.”

All Oregonians 12 and older will automatically be entered into the cash or scholarship lotteries, as long as they’ve been vaccinated with at least one dose. The state will not allow anyone who says they can’t be vaccinated for religious or health reasons to take part in the drawings.

Oregonians vaccinated in other states will be entered into the drawings because they are registered in the state’s database of vaccinated residents, officials said. But residents vaccinated at federal clinics such as those run by Veterans Affairs aren’t currently slated to be entered into the lotteries because of data transfer problems. State officials said they are hoping to change that in the next week.

State data shows Oregon, with about 4.2 million residents, has administered at least one dose to about 2.1 million people. Although some of those people aren’t Oregon residents, by far most are and the figure gives a good idea of the number of residents who are eligible for the vaccination drawings so far.

When asked why people in sparsely populated counties will be given far greater chances of winning in the $10,000 county-by-county drawings and if that’s to provide additional motivation for rural residents, who generally are less likely to be vaccinated, the governor’s office didn’t directly answer. Spokesman Charles Boyle, however, said the vaccination lottery was developed “on a short timeline” with “simplicity” in mind. He said the goal also was to spread the winnings across the state.

“The campaign is designed to incentivize vaccination statewide, not just in Oregon’s most populous counties,” Boyle said in an email.To learn more specifics of the vaccination lottery, visit this Frequently Asked Questions sheet created by the state.

In other news from Brown Friday:

The governor hinted that Oregon might be able to lift most COVID-19 restrictions in the first half of June, if large numbers of Oregonians continue to get their shots. Brown announced earlier this month that she’d remove most COVID-19 restrictions – including capacity limits on restaurants, gyms and other venues – when 70% of Oregonians 16 and older are immunized with at least one dose.

“We have an opportunity to beat California with fully reopening the economy if we can get close to 250,000 Oregonians vaccinated in the next few weeks,” Brown said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is aiming for a tentative reopening date of June 15.

When asked what the next goal will be for Oregon after it reaches 70% of people 16 and older vaccinated, Brown said only that she’d like to see the percentage “substantially higher.” Seventy percent of people 16 and older might in reality translate to around 55% or 60% of the overall population vaccinated, when children are also included in the equation. That’s still a ways off from herd immunity.

When asked how she’d continue to increase the proportion of vaccinated Oregonians, Brown said she’s open to the idea of more incentives. But she didn’t specifically answer a question about whether she’d hold another lottery after June 28 or if she’d offer other enticements such as $25 to every vaccinated resident or free marijuana.

“Trust me,” Brown said. “… I have all of my friends, family and anyone who has my phone number texting me concepts of incentives to encourage more Oregonians to get vaccinated.”