‘Total excitement’: Last Vax-a-Million lottery winners meet the press
CLEVELAND — Thirteen-year-old Sydney Daum's parents planned on waiting to have their daughter vaccinated against COVID-19 until just before school started.
But then Gov. Mike DeWine announced the Vax-a-Million vaccine incentive lottery, offering a full-ride scholarship to an Ohio college or university, and decided not to wait.
"We can't believe it paid off," said the Brecksville midde-schooler's mother, Jennifer Daum, who spoke with DeWine and reporters Thursday morning.
"It was a shock. I'd kind of forgotten about it. Then you called and — total excitement."
Sydney's father, Jeremy Daum, was skeptical of vaccine lottery scams at first, until he saw the governor's face on a video call, announcing they'd won. He said they'd planned on sending Sydney to college and at least now "we know it'll probably be in Ohio," he said, laughing.
"We got one more taken care of for college. We got one more to go," he said, referring to Sydney's 11-year-old brother.
Esperanza Diaz, a 63-year-old dental assistant in Cincinnati, was the lottery's $1 million winner. She said she didn't sleep much after learning she'd won. She said she'll put the prize money toward bills and helping her family.
"I'm still trying to get a grasp of this," she told reporters through a beaming smile. "I will have plenty to spend it on."
Because of her food allergies, Diaz said she was initially hesitant to get the coronavirus vaccine.
"I decided that the risk of getting COVID was bigger than maybe the risk for the vaccine," Diaz said. "I think it's better to get it.
"I got the Pfizer vaccine, and I didn't have any side effects. I was completely OK," she added. I would recommend it to everyone. I think it can save a lot of lives."
Daum and Diaz were announced Wednesday evening as the state's fifth and final Vax-a-Million winners. DeWine said the administration is planning to continue some form of vaccine incentive program, but he wasn't ready to announce anything Thursday. He said Ohioans have suggested a larger pool of smaller prizes moving forward.
The governor has touted the success of the lottery program, pointing to an increase of more than 45,000 new vaccinations for adults and children 12 and older just in the past week. By the time the lottery's final winners were drawn, 3.5 million adults and 155,000 youths had entered.
Vaccine hesitancy remains
Fewer than half of the about 11.7 million Ohioans have received at least one dose of the vaccine as of Thursday, however.
More than 43 percent of all Ohioans have been fully vaccinated, according to the Ohio Department of Health, but the Mahoning Valley's vaccination rates continue to lag behind the state.
About 42 percent of Mahoning County residents have been fully vaccinated, along with 39 percent of residents in Trumbull and 35 percent in Columbiana.
Ohioans age 12 to 45 have the lowest vaccine uptake, DeWine said Thursday.
When COVID-19 cases surged in winter, Ohioans age 80 and older made up more than half of all COVID-19 deaths. Today, those age 40 to 79 account for more than 65 percent of those deaths, according to the governor's office.
Though the state's rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths have fallen dramatically — now down to about 100 deaths each week, more of whom are now coming from younger age groups — DeWine told reporters he thinks a stronger message is needed.
While people "have every right" to choose not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, they're putting others at risk, he said.
"We shouldn't shy away from the facts. We are at this kind of strange time. We judge things in life with a kind of relativity … we compare it to what it was before," DeWine said. "One-hundred people dying a week is a lot. ... We were losing hundreds and hundreds of people."
Earlier in the briefing, when asked about Ohioans' susceptibility to the coronavirus' highly contagious Delta variant, the governor said: "I am concerned about those counties in the state of Ohio that have a very low vaccination rate. What we're seeing in other states and what we read from the experts is those areas, those pockets, are vulnerable."
The governor said Thursday vaccine outreach efforts will continue in Ohio schools, through community organizations, local physician and pediatrician offices and in underserved areas of the state.
More than 200 Ohio school districts have agreed to host summer vaccine clinics, along with several Ohio Boys and Girls Clubs sites, several dozen providers of summer food service programs and all the Department of Job and Family Services offices that directly serve clients.
DeWine has been holding regular coronavirus briefings since the beginning of the pandemic in Ohio in February 2020. During Thursday's last Vax-a-Million appearance, he suggested he'd continue briefing the state on issues of the day — though they may not be related to coronavirus.
"We're evolving. We're moving forward. I certainly will continue to be available to media," DeWine said. "A lot of these will be more surrounding events or announcements of specific things."
This story was originally published June 24, 2021 at 2:32 PM with the headline "‘Total excitement’: Last Vax-a-Million lottery winners meet the press."