Ro's Recz

While a significant part of the US population has already gotten their COVID-19 vaccines, there is another significant part that has not yet. For these people, it may be difficult to convince them to get it, but some may still be on the fence about getting it or not.

Companies giving out rewards and incentives for people to get the vaccine is relatively commonplace now, but larger initiatives have started to take place. These are mostly given out at the government level, and the prizes for winning are quite significant.

In this recent article on WIRED, it talks about vaccine lotteries and how effective they can be to push people towards getting vaccines. The example given in the article is Ohio’s “Vax-A-Million” program, in which 5 one-million dollar cash prizes will be given out to citizens, as well as $600,000 in scholarship money to a bunch of students. At first, I was a bit surprised because this seems like quite a large amount of money. However, the article made a compelling argument for why this type of huge lottery can be a really effective tool in convincing people to get vaccines. Vaccine lottery uses the same principle as lottery tickets, in which people overestimate the probability they have of winning a huge cash prize (as even if the odds are 1 in a million, someone has to win). While smaller prizes like getting a free hamburger is likely not enough to sway someone into getting a vaccine, giving someone a chance to win $1 million (even if it is a 0.00001% chance) just for getting a shot could be convincing enough.

The article goes a lot more in depth about the economics behind the COVID-19 vaccine lotteries, and I found it incredibly interesting to read. I have become convinced that these types of projects can really make an impact, and the theories/principles applied to it can be applied to many other fields as well!

Article Recommendation Rating: 4

This post has now been updated to reflect a new ratings system that I have implemented, which is scored as follows:

1: Something worth checking out if you have time

2: Something that is a hit for some people, but not a must for everyone

3: Something worth prioritizing if interested

4: Something worth making time to check out

5: An absolute home run, worth going out of your way for