OK, so maybe the odds of winning $1 million in Ohio’s vaccine lottery aren’t as great as we had assumed. But that’s probably a good thing, as more people are vaccinated from COVID-19 within the state.
On Tuesday, the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Lottery said in a joint news release that ohiovaxamillion.com, the state’s website where vaccinated residents can enter to win $1 million or full-ride scholarships to public universities, had more than 25 million pageviews by the evening on its first day.
The website launched Tuesday morning.
The release also noted that by 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Ohio Department of Health received more than 60,000 calls about the program, and “hundreds of thousands” of Ohio residents had entered the drawing.
Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine originally said that all Ohioans who had received at least the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine would be automatically eligible for the lottery.
But in a departure from that, DeWine announced Monday that vaccinated Ohioans would have to visit the Vax-a-Million website to enter. The required registration plus the number of Ohioans who will not get a vaccine would significantly reduce the size of the pool entrants, thereby increasing the odds of winning, experts assumed.
In a recent story, Cleveland.com estimated a Vax-a-million registrant’s odds of winning at 1-in-1 million. For comparison, the odds of winning Ohio’s Classic Lotto with a $1 million jackpot are 1-in-14 million.
But the early number of registrants and callers suggests that the lotto might be a little more competitive than previously thought.
About 72% of Ohio’s 11,689,100 residents are 18 or older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures from July 2019.
As CityBeat previously reported, the Vax-a-Million promotion was created to incentivize wider vaccine adoption in the lead-up to June 2, when the state will lift all pandemic health orders. Ohio is dropping the restrictions despite being far short of several benchmarks that DeWine and other officials had long said should be met. DeWine earlier this year said that the rate of coronavirus cases would have to drop to 50 per 100,000 Ohioans before orders such as the requirement to wear masks indoors in public spaces would be dropped. On May 18, that rate stood at 118.9 COVID cases per 100,000, significantly higher than the stated benchmark.
Demand for vaccinations in Ohio has plummeted. Right now, the state is only using about 20% of its federal allotment of doses, and vaccination sites across the state are reducing their operations in response to dwindling demand.
In Ohio, 42.92% of residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine as of May 18. Only 37.72% are fully vaccinated, according to Ohio’s COVID-19 dashboard. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a “fully vaccinated” person is one who is two weeks past their second dose of a two-dose vaccine (Pfizer and Moderna) or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine (Johnson & Johnson/Janssen).
Ohioans must be at least 12 years old for the Pfizer vaccine and 18 years old for the Moderna and J&J vaccines. Parental consent is required for minors. Find information and vaccine locations on Ohio’s coronavirus portal.
But the vaccination rate may be improving. Ohio health officials said Monday that more than 25,400 COVID-19 vaccines were administered on Friday — two days after last week’s announcement about Vax-a-Million, NBC News reported. It was Ohio’s highest vaccination rate in three weeks. Moreover, vaccinations for Ohioans ages 30 to 74 increased by 6% after previous weeks had seen steady decline.
All Ohioans who have received at least one vaccination dose are eligible for Vax-a-Million, in which five adult winners will receive $1 million each. A name will be selected at random from registered and confirmed vaccinated Ohioans, and one winner per week over the course of five weeks will walk away with a life-changing sum.
In addition, vaccinated Ohio residents who are ages 12-17 can enter to win a full-ride, four-year scholarship to any Ohio state college or university. As with the adults, five winners will be named, with one drawn per week.
Winners will be announced weekly beginning May 26.
To enter the drawing, visit ohiovaxamillion.com. For information about COVID-19 and vaccination locations, visit coronavirus.ohio.gov.
This article appears in May 1-31, 2021.
