LA VACCINE STATUS - Governor John Bel Edwards and the Louisiana Department of Health announced the $1 million dollar grand prize cash winner and the last five $100,000 dollar college scholarship winners of the Shot At A Million campaign Friday. A retired school teacher from Bossier City, Janet Mann was the million dollar grand prize winner in the state's COVID-19 vaccine lottery designed as an incentive to boost vaccination rates. And to encourage more college students to get vaccinated, the Governor announced a new incentive campaign called “Shot for One-Hundred” as a huge percentage of Covid transmissions are among ages 18 to 29, which is also among the largest age group of unvaccinated adults.
"At participating colleges and univiersities students will be given a deactivated Visa card upon their vaccination," Edwards said. "And then they will register online at Shotfor100.com and that card will be loaded with $100."
The program is limited to 75,000 students on a first-come basis to get vaccinated. Louisiana is still near the bottom of states with the most vaccinated against Covid-19 and leads the nation in daily number of Covid infections. Vaccine compliance has been increasing a bit as other Louisiana politicians have been encouraging their constituents to get vaccinated. Appearing on CBS Face The Nation Sunday – GOP minority Whip Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise who had only recently been vaccinated shared his observations.
"I had antibodies and so I ultimately made the decision once I was saw the Delta variant picking up," Scalise explained. "I thought it was important to get vaccinated. And I have high confidence in this vaccination, it's safe and effective. And I think we ought to be encouraging more people to do it."
The latest data from the CDC shows 38% of Louisiana’s population is fully vaccinated. The big winner for Louisiana's Shot At A Million vaccine incentive was announced and a new statewide vaccine incentive for college students was announced.
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