Starting today, New York is
offering an incredible new incentive for young people to get a COVID-19
vaccine.
How does free college sound?
That’s what the state is raffling off to any child between ages 12 and 17 who
gets the COVID vaccine.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced
Wednesday that the state will raffle off 50 scholarships, which would cover
four years of tuition, room and board, books and supplies. The raffle
incentive begins Thursday and runs through July 17.
New York will hold weekly
drawings on Wednesdays to randomly select 10 winners. Parents or guardians can
enter children who have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine
since May 12.
Schools across the country
are using mascots, food trucks and prize giveaways to try to get kids
vaccinated before school lets out for the summer.
Cuomo said children who get
vaccinated earlier will have the best chance at winning. “If you get the
vaccine earlier, you’ll have more chances to win because you’ll be in the
first-week pool, the second-week pool, the third-week pool, the fourth-week pool, etc," Cuomo said at a Wednesday press conference.
It's the state's latest push
to get more people vaccinated at a time when state health officials say many
eager New Yorkers have likely already gotten inoculated.
Since Monday, New York has
been offering scratch tickets for a $5 million lottery for people who get
vaccinated at 10 of roughly 30 state-run
vaccination sites. That pilot program runs through Friday.
New York administered 788,145
doses in the seven days through Tuesday. That’s down from just over 1 million
in the seven days ending Tuesday, May 11.
About 45% of New York's 20
million residents are fully vaccinated, according to U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention data, compared to the national average of 39.5%.
Few minors have been fully
vaccinated so far: about 8.7% of people aged 12 to 17, according to state
health data shared by Cuomo. That's compared with 37.5% of young adults below
the age of 25, about half of people aged 35-54 and 69.5% of those over 75.
As the cost of college
continues to rise, News 12 asked parents what no-tuition
and room and board would mean for them. "I have six children so I'm
thinking, scratching my head, how are we going to do it," says Edwin
Familia, of Yonkers. "I'm currently out of work so it would be
helpful," says Maria Conti, of Harrison.
It's unclear when
applications for the lottery will open up, but people can sign up for
notifications on a state website by clicking
here.