DeWine: Vax-a-Million is ‘an accomplishment’; COVID-19 cases nearing targeted low
CEDARVILLE — Ohio's multi-million dollar COVID-19 vaccine incentive looks to be life-changing for its weekly winners.
This week's winners, announced Wednesday evening, said they're now able to look forward to settling their family or paying for medical school.
The Vax-a-Million vaccine lottery comes at a time when the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state is also changing.
As of Thursday, about 55 new cases per 100,000 people were reported statewide over the last two weeks, nearing Gov. Mike DeWine's initial goal of 50 cases per 100,000 people — the threshold causing health orders to be lifted. They expired Wednesday, however.
No whammy
More than 5.3 million Ohioans, about 46 percent, had at least begun their vaccination as of Thursday. DeWine has credited the lottery with sparking new enthusiasm for the jab, and an average about 50 percent increase in first-time vaccinations.
Right now, that boost appears small — an average 2,700 per day in the 10 days after the lottery was announced, compared to about 1,900 per day in the 10 days before. The vaccination rate had already been falling off a cliff. It peaked in the last 10 days of March at about 7,600 per day. But DeWine said Thursday he expects more vaccinations to be retroactively reported in the days to come.
"Our first concern, candidly, was to stop the bleeding — and by that I mean stop [the vaccination rate] from going down," the governor said. "Righting that ship itself, I think, was an accomplishment."
DeWine on Thursday hinted his administration is in talks with certain Ohio companies on new vaccine incentives — things to "sweeten this a little and continue to get people excited." Other states have replicated the lottery idea, including West Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico, New York and Oregon.
Ohio's $5 million vaccine lottery pool came from unspent federal COVID-19 relief dollars. Going forward, the U.S. Treasury has ruled states can also put federal American Rescue Plan dollars toward vaccine incentive programs, Andy Slavitt, former acting administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said during a White House media briefing last week.
"Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has unlocked a secret: People do care about getting vaccinated, but it turns out they also have other things they care about. Some of those things might encourage people to think about what might otherwise be a lower priority," he said. "In several counties, the rate of vaccination doubled compared to before the announcement. In other words, the program is working.
"With this guidance, we encourage states to use their creativity to draw attention to vaccines and to get their states and the country back to normal as quickly as possible. This includes lottery programs for vaccinated individuals — cash or in-kind transfers or other monetary incentives — for individuals to get vaccinated."
Jonathan Carlyle, the Toledo man who won this week's $1 million Vax-a-Million prize, said Thursday he was one of the vaccine-hesitant Ohioans that Vax-a-Million is aimed toward. He hadn't yet gotten his first dose when the state announced the lottery.
"I was putting it off a lot because I was working a lot at the time. But I knew I wanted to get it," he said. "When ya'll announced the Vax-a-Million, I said, 'Yes, I need to do this now.'"
He got the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine at a community center days later.
"I think we've succeeded and gotten a lot of people vaccinated quicker than they would have," DeWine told reporters Thursday. "Some people that got it weren't going to get it at all."
Mahoning has some of the worst spread in Ohio
And as vaccinations rise, the number of new cases fall, DeWine said Thursday. Ohio's smallest county, Vinton — home to just 13,000 people — has reported no new cases in the past week, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
As ODH reported Thursday, nearly half of Ohio's 88 counties dipped below that goal of 50 cases per 100,000 people between May 19 and June 1, and all but four were below 100 new cases, which is the CDC's threshold for "high incidence" of spread.
Mahoning County, however, is one of those four. Its bi-weekly rate of 117 new cases per 100,000 people is the third-highest in the state. Also, the other three counties have, at most, about a quarter the population of Mahoning.
With nearly 39 percent of its population fully vaccinated, Mahoning County isn't far off the state's 40 percent rate. But the county is lagging much more noticeably behind the rest of Ohio in vaccine uptake among residents aged 20 to 49 — the age groups most likely to have mild coronavirus infections:
- 0 to 19 years old: -1.4 percent
- 20 to 29 years old: -7.5 percent
- 30 to 39 years old: -6.8 percent
- 40 to 49 years old: -6.2 percent
- 50 to 59 years old: -2.6 percent
- 60 to 64 years old: -2.6 percent
- 65 to 69 years old: -1.2 percent
- 70 to 74 years old: +1.5 percent
- 75 to 79 years old: -3.7 percent
- 80 years and older: -3.4 percent
'It's unbelievable'
Carlyle said he didn't sleep much Wednesday night. He was "dreaming a lot about the future."
He had just wrapped up a "very, very long" shift delivering Amazon packages when he learned he was the latest $1 million winner in Ohio's Vax-a-Million COVID-19 vaccine incentive lottery.
His phone rang and Gov. Mike DeWine's name appeared on the screen. He didn't answer at first.
"I had a feeling what was up. I listened to the voicemail and I pretty much almost lost it inside the van," Carlyle said. "This is a good foundation for my family. It's unbelievable."
Carlyle and his girlfriend are hunting for their "forever home," with three children, including a 5-month-old son, in tow.
"This is so welcome. I can't explain how much pressure this is going to take off to help raise him right," he said.
Zoie Vincent of Mayfield Village, the state's full-ride scholarship winner, said she's looking at college pre-med programs — colleges like Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Ohio State University in Columbus.
"It was really wild because it came out of nowhere. We weren't expecting it at all," she said.
Vincent has been interested in medicine "for as long as I can remember" and she recently finished the first year of her school's medical technology program. She starts college next year.
"My initial reaction to this is I can finally be able to focus on my later education in med school, hopefully, rather than have to worry about taking on student loans later on," she said.
"I felt a weight off my shoulders. I could really see my career ahead of me."
The state will draw three more winners each for the million-dollar prizes and scholarships, on the next three Wednesdays.
Other news
• According to the latest figures Thursday from the Ohio Department of Health, the state is reporting 1,103,380 confirmed or suspected cases of the coronavirus. There have been 22,219 confirmed or suspected cases in Mahoning County; 16,453 in Trumbull County; and 8,985 in Columbiana County. [DEATH DATA WAS NOT UPDATED THURSDAY.]
• Statewide, the new adjusted COVID-19 death total is 19,923, including 593 in Mahoning County; 477 in Trumbull; and 229 in Columbiana. Mahoning County's 593 reported COVID-19 deaths was ninth among Ohio's 88 counties; Cuyahoga County had the most with 2,183.
• In nearby counties: Stark, 33,143 cases and 921 deaths; Portage, 13,179 cases and 212 deaths; and Ashtabula, 7,088 cases and 179 deaths. [DEATH DATA WAS NOT UPDATED THURSDAY.]
• Mahoning County Public Health will offer vaccinations for rabies and for COVID-19 Saturday at Angels for Animals in Canfield. The rabies shots are for dogs, cats and ferrets. The COVID-19 vaccinations are for anyone 18 and older.
• Youngstown City Health District will host a coronavirus vaccine clinic on Tuesday from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. at the Henry Stambaugh Golf Course. Anyone who receives a vaccine will receive a free round of golf and will also be entered into a drawing on Oct. 31 for free membership for the 2022 golf season. The health department will offer the Moderna and the Johnson & Johnson vaccines at no cost.
• The Trumbull County Combined Health District will host a walk-in COVID-19 vaccination clinic from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Brookfield Community Park on Sharon Road. The clinic, for individuals age 12 and older, will have all three vaccines available. You can register in advance or walk in. For more information go to TCCHD.org.
• According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health on Thursday, there were 1,204,099 COVID-19 cases in the state which have led to 27,295 deaths. There have been 9,624 confirmed or suspected cases in Mercer County and 259 deaths; 7,597 cases in Lawrence County and 211 deaths. In Mercer County, 38,919 people have been completely vaccinated; in Lawrence County, 28,822 have been completely vaccinated.
• Public schools in Pennsylvania have received the biggest share of COVID-19 aid throughout the pandemic, according to an analysis of federal relief funding. The Commonwealth Foundation, using state data, determined that 29 percent of the $34 billion awarded to Pennsylvania by the federal government across three main stimulus packages was directed to public education.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 3:52 AM with the headline "DeWine: Vax-a-Million is ‘an accomplishment’; COVID-19 cases nearing targeted low."