Just a hunch, but we’re guessing that later this week, there might be a sudden job opening at a King County motorcycle shop.
It could play out like this:
A 23-year-old mechanic named Kameron, who accepted a check for $1 million in Washington’s “Shot of a Lifetime” program on Friday, wakes up Monday and decides he’d rather go ride his own bike than fix somebody else’s.
Why not? Kameron’s vaccinated against COVID-19 and should be safe wherever he wants to go.
So there’s that job opening …
Who hasn’t taken the occasional two-minute mental ride to imagine what they’d do if they unexpectedly came into a million bucks? (Don’t be embarrassed — we’re as guilty as anybody else.)
Stories of people winning lotteries, finding long-lost treasures or inheriting vast sums of money from forgotten, faraway relatives seem to inspire most of us. Maybe it’s just part of the anybody-can-get-rich-quick-if-things-break-right culture that makes America the goofily optimistic country it is.
It was clever of Gov. Jay Inslee and several other governors across the country to bank on that tendency and set up lotteries to entice people to get vaccinated.
In Washington’s case, the game included four previous drawings of $250,000 each in the month leading up to last week’s grand prize giveaway. A Yakima resident picked up one of the $250,000 prizes. Among other items, the state’s program has also given away Guaranteed Education Tuition credits, airline tickets, sports tickets and video-game consoles.
Vaccinated people were automatically enrolled in the contest.
The hope was that dangling tangible benefits to reward something that anyone with any common sense would’ve done anyway would persuade reluctant or procrastinating people — especially younger ones — to roll up their sleeves and get their shots.
Did it work? State officials seem to think so.
“Our best estimate,” Franji Mayes told The Seattle Times last week, “is that between June 3 and June 22, about 28,500 more people got their first shot than we would have expected without the lottery — a 24% increase.” Mayes is an emergency communications consultant for the state health department, and she noted that the promotion’s biggest success has been to increase vaccinations rates among people under age 18.
Whatever it takes, we guess.
So congratulations to all the winners, including Kameron, Washington’s newest millionaire. While we’re at it, congratulations to Gov. Inslee and all the state health officials for cutting the risk to the rest of us by getting more people safely vaccinated.
We can’t help but feel a little wistful, though.
It takes $2 million worth of prizes just to get people to protect their own health and ensure that they aren’t spreading a potentially fatal disease to their friends and loved ones? We’re not willing to do any of that just for the sake of being responsible neighbors?
On the other hand, considering the constant drone of misinformation and intentionally disseminated disinformation about COVID vaccines, maybe it’s somewhat understandable.
Still, it seems disappointing. You wouldn’t think we’d need to spend $2 million to create that one potential job opening.
"Opinion" - Google News
July 18, 2021 at 03:00PM
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Opinion: Congratulations to Washington's newest millionaire | Opinion | yakimaherald.com - Yakima Herald-Republic
"Opinion" - Google News
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