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Four more $1million prizes and four more scholarships will be handed out every Wednesday night over the next four weeks.
update 5/13/2021 9:12 AM
A grad student in Ohio has become the first person to win $1million in the state lottery for the vaccinated.
Engineering graduate Abbigail Bugenske, from Silverton, was pulled from a hat of 2.7million Ohioans during a 60 second broadcast on Wednesday.
"I can't believe it,” her grandmother Karen told The Washington Post. "I kept saying, 'Stop, this is a scam. It's, what, a million? No, you don't mean a million, you mean a thousand'... Wow, this is unbelievable."
The state is also offering five full-ride college scholarships to Covid vaccine recipients under 18: the first winner of that was 14-year-old Joseph Costello:
Four more $1million prizes and four more scholarships will be handed out every Wednesday night over the next four weeks.
Original story 5/27/2021 7:30 AM
As if being inoculated against a potentially fatal virus isn't incentive enough — you can get rich too!
The state of Ohio is giving $1million to five brave residents who step forward to... get the Covid vaccine.
Governor Mike DeWine announced on Twitter that he is using Government Covid Relief funds to entice people into getting the shot with a $5million lottery.
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View Story"Two weeks from tonight on May 26th, we will announce a winner of a separate drawing for adults who have received at least their first dose of the vaccine," he tweeted. "This announcement will occur each Wednesday for five weeks, and the winner each Wednesday will receive one million dollars."
The lottery is open to anyone over the age of 18, is a resident of Ohio... and has gotten at least one Covid shot.
The winner will be chosen from the state voter registration database. Even those who are not registered to vote can try their luck using a dedicated website, launching shortly.
"I know that some may say, 'DeWine, you're crazy! This million-dollar drawing idea of yours is a waste of money.'" he tweeted.
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View Story"But truly, the real waste at this point in the pandemic — when the vaccine is readily available to anyone who wants it — is a life lost to COVID-19."
Reaction to the incentive was mixed.
There were those who thanked the Governor for making the effort to safeguard the citizens:
There were those who argued the money could be much better spent, by giving it to frontline healthcare workers or bereaved families, or perhaps by spreading the prize money further:
There were those who accused the Governor of bribery:
And then there were these guys:
