Health

Ohio Governor Rejects Study That Claimed Vaccine Lottery Was Ineffective

(Photo by Justin Merriman/Getty Images)

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Sebastian Hughes Politics Reporter
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine rejected the results of a study released last week claiming the state’s Vax-a-Million lottery produced no significant increase in citizens getting vaccinated, Fox8 reported.

Boston University’s School of Medicine’s July 2 study attributed the bump in vaccinations after the announcement of the lottery to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permitting teenagers aged 12 to 15 to get the shot.

“Governor DeWine saw the study and recognized immediately what the error is. The study is flawed because it is focused on 12 to 15 year olds,” Dan Tierney, spokesperson for DeWine, told Fox8.

“The first week after Vax-a-million, we saw a 44 percent increase in Ohioans 16 and older getting the vaccine,” he said. “We saw a 17 percent increase in those 16 and older in the second week.”.

The study used data from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control to compare Ohio’s vaccination rate with states who did not have a lottery incentive program. (RELATED: ‘No Good Reason Not To Get Vaccinated’: McConnell Says Shot ‘Almost Guarantees’ Someone Won’t Die From COVID-19)

“Our results suggest that state-based lotteries are of limited value in increasing vaccine uptake. Therefore, the resources devoted to vaccine lotteries may be more successfully invested in programs that target underlying reasons for vaccine hesitancy and low vaccine uptake,” author Allan J. Walkey, a professor at BU’s School of Medicine and a physician at Boston Medical Center, said in a statement.

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Educational staff at Kettering City Schools receive the Covid-19 vaccine as a part of Ohios Phase 1B vaccine distribution in Dayton, Ohio, on February 10, 2021. (MEGAN JELINGER/AFP via Getty Images)

While there was an increase in vaccinations after the announcement, the number of shots has continued to drop since then, according to the Ohio Department of Health. “Clearly the impact went down after that second week,” DeWine acknowledged in June, according to the AP.

Tierney highlighted other benefits to the Vax-a-Million, like the free publicity that came from the announcement. “One of the other things that was unanticipated but makes sense in retrospect, was it got people talking about the vaccine in a way that was fun, less fear,” Tierney told Fox8.

Tierney said more incentives are on the horizon. “It’s moving up the vaccination rate that is so important, especially with the delta variant going on right now,” Tierney told Fox8.

Ohio has fully vaccinated 45.2% of its population, while 48.5% have gotten at least one dose. 47.5% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, while 55% have gotten at least one dose, according to NPR.

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