Get the COVID-19 vaccine and you could be as rich as Gov. Andrew Cuomo!
New Yorkers 18 or older who get the shot at state-run sites next week will have a chance to win $5 million through a “Vax and Scratch” lottery program, Cuomo announced Thursday.
That’s the same amount he received for his controversial pandemic memoir.
Any New Yorker who gets inoculated at one of the state’s 10 inoculation locations from May 24 to May 28 will get a free scratch-off state lottery ticket — worth $20 — for the $5 Million Mega Multiplier Lottery, Cuomo said.
“The chances of winning something in this program are one in nine that you win something,” the governor said during a press briefing at Buffalo Niagara International Airport. “So it is a very exciting lottery.”
The first prize winner could score $5 million through the lottery, while the second, third, fourth and fifth prize winners could earn $50,000, $20,000, $5,000 and $2,000, respectively.
The lowest prize in the lottery is $20.
“If you were undecided about getting the vaccine… now you have an added bonus,” Cuomo said. “It is a situation where everybody wins.”
The state-run sites include Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and the Javits Centers in Manhattan.
Cuomo announced the “major” vaccine “incentive” after noting that there has been a 43 percent decline in the number of people getting vaccinated.
“The people most willing to take the vaccine came in first,” he said. “We went through that percentage of the population.”
“Now we’re getting to that percentage of the population that not only is not eager, but is probably going to require an incentive to go forward and take the vaccine. And then you’re going to have a percentage of the population that is just anti-vaccine,” he added.
To date, New York has administered more than 17.8 million vaccine doses. More than 62 percent of the state’s adults have received at least one shot, data shows.
