Washington County residents, if you need any more reasons to get vaccinated against COVID-19, your county is giving you some: A chance at winning one of ten $10,000 awards.
Or one of five $20,000 college scholarships, as part of a new lottery announced Friday.
County officials say all adults immunized with at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine will be eligible to win the $10,000 awards. All partially or fully vaccinated youth ages 12 to 17 will be eligible for the college scholarships.
Winners will be drawn on June 28, the same day the state randomly selects one $1 million winner; three dozen $10,000 winners representing one vaccinated person in each of the state’s counties; and five $100,000 college scholarship recipients.
Washington County’s prizes are meant to further encourage residents to get vaccinated in one of the most vaccinated counties in the state. About 72% of residents 16 and older are at least partially immunized against COVID-19. About 53% of people of all age groups are fully vaccinated, with many experts saying 70% to 85% need to be fully vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity. So there’s still a long way to go.
Roughly 372,000 Washington County residents age 12 and older are eligible for the county’s lotteries for prize money or scholarships because they’ve received at least one dose. Children younger than that aren’t yet approved to receive the COVID-19 vaccines, but public health officials say they hope to start administering doses to school-aged children in the fall.
Washington County officials said all Washington County residents, regardless of the county where they received their vaccinations, are automatically entered into the lottery. The exception may be residents who were vaccinated out of state or at federal sites, such as clinics run by Veterans Affairs. They should register for the state and local lotteries by filling out a form at takeyourshot.oregon.gov.
Washington County’s additional lottery prizes will cost it a total of $200,000, money it’s getting from $3.2 million in federal funds that the state allocated the county. The money can be used for the vaccination rollout, including on incentives to encourage inoculations.
The federal money allocated varies by county population size, with Multnomah County to receive at total of about $4.3 million and Clackamas County $2.2 million. Officials from Multnomah and Clackamas counties Friday didn’t immediately answer questions about how they will spend the money, including whether they planned to supplement the state’s lottery with more prizes like Washington County. Some county officials were taking the day off because of the Juneteenth holiday.
The statewide lottery, announced May 21, appears to have struggled to motivate large numbers of Oregonians to get the jab. But Tricia Mortell, Washington County’s public health division manager, said research shows that a chance at winning the lottery will motivate some people more than giving them a small gift, such as the $100 incentives that have been recently offered in the metro area.
But even so, the county will use some of its money to also hand out gift cards to local businesses or for gas or food.
Many vaccination sites are open across Washington County, ranging from pharmacies and doctors’ offices to large clinics such as one that opens Friday afternoon and operates through July 2 at the Tektronix campus in Beaverton. It can inoculate up to 500 people a day.
Residents of any county can find the vaccination sites closest to them by visiting the website getvaccinated.oregon.gov/#/locator.
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-- Aimee Green; agreen@oregonian.com; @o_aimee
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