This Kansas City area site to give out $1,000 a day for COVID vaccines. Will it work?
Wyandotte County health officials are doubling down on their efforts to get residents vaccinated against COVID-19, just days after the county reported the delta variant had killed one resident.
Most residents have not been vaccinated, which puts the county “at especially high risk of increased outbreaks of the delta variant of the virus, because it spreads so easily,” chief health officer Dr. Allen Greiner said Monday in a statement.
On Wednesday, the Unified Government Public Health Department begins another phase of an incentive program that offers prizes, only to residents who step forward to get the free vaccine.
The #IHelpedConquerCOVID campaign works like this:
Any county resident 12 and older who gets the shot at the department’s vaccination facility at 7836 State Ave, a former Kmart building, will be eligible to “Spin to Win” an instant prize, which include Visa gift cards, a $15 restaurant gift card or a custom T-shirt.
Or they can enter a raffle to win one of two $500 Visa gift cards that will be given out each day the facility is open. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian to participate.
Health officials said they have more than 40 confirmed cases of COVID-19 caused by the delta variant, most of them in unvaccinated residents.
Cash and prizes are being offered across the country where vaccination rates are low. In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson’s administration has talked of launching a statewide incentive program that would likely include a “substantial grand prize,” but officials have said there are no definitive plans.
Talk of incentives, which would include the Missouri lottery, comes as Missouri struggles with one of the nation’s highest rates of COVID cases, and the delta variant has rural communities in its grip, while it has one of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, at 39%.
In Wyandotte County, despite widespread community outreach, only 36.9% of residents have received one dose of the vaccine, and 32% have completed vaccination, according to the county’s data, far lower than the statewide average and the lowest in the Kansas City metro.
In Kansas, 44.9% percent of residents have received one dose, and 39.5% have been fully vaccinated, according to data compiled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
The county health department is also offering incentives for people to get tested for COVID.
Residents who get tested at a site run by the county will get a $25 Visa gift card. People who get both a test and the vaccine receive the incentives offered for both programs. The test is a saliva test, not a swab of the nose.
Anyone 12 or older can be vaccinated for free, regardless of whether they have health insurance.
For hours and locations of vaccination locations run by the health department go to WycoVaccines.org. Residents can will request mobile vaccines on that website or by calling 3-1-1 (913-573-5311).
To find pharmacies and other vaccine providers in the metropolitan area, go to Vaccines.gov.
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