Someone from Marin won the $ 1.5 million COVID vaccine lottery in California – Marine Independent Journal

If you receive a call from the 916 area code within a few days of being vaccinated, be sure to answer the call. It may be a state official telling you that you are a millionaire.

Closing weeks of giveaways to convince residents interested in more vaccines to be vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus, the state closed on Tuesday with 10 winners of California’s largest COVID vaccine award (1.5 million). I chose a dollar check). Blockade and restrictions on the pandemic for several months.

Governor Gavin Newsom said in a draw from the stage at Universal Studios Hollywood, surrounded by anime characters from Optimus Prime, Minions and other theme parks, “I’m here thanks to your efforts.”

But if you’re from the Bay Area, don’t get too excited. It is just one of the 10 big winners welcomed from the region, especially Marin County. The four came from Los Angeles County, but each county of Riverside, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Stanislaus, and Ventura boasted one winner.

The winners on Tuesday, identified only by the county, are like deviations from the 30 previous winners selected to receive $ 50,000 each. Approximately one-third of those residents call the Bay Area their hometown.

So how did California’s vaccine incentive program work? And did it really drive people who dislike vaccines to line up in jabs in some of the states with the lowest vaccine rates?

All California residents (with a few exceptions, such as the governor himself, prisoners, and state lottery workers) are eligible to win in a pool of about 22 million people if they receive at least one shot. did.

However, the county was well represented among the winners, as more than a quarter, or 26%, of the vaccinated Californians live in Los Angeles.

Santa Clara County, which accounts for 6% of the state’s vaccinated population, and Alameda, which accounts for 5%, were excluded from the grand prize on Tuesday. Only 5.75% of immunized Californians live in 33 of the state’s smallest counties. In short, the lottery-style prize setting method favors populated, highly vaccinated counties. However, Stanislaus in the countryside, home to 1.1% of vaccinated Californians, won on Tuesday with a $ 1 million winner.

Other states have designed lottery to improve the odds of people in low-vaccinated communities, such as Oregon, which awards $ 10,000 checks to vaccinated residents in each of the 36 counties. ..

If California had taken a similar approach, nearly 80% of Yuba County vaccinated residents (about 25,595 people received at least one vaccination) in San Francisco County were vaccinated. It would have been much more likely to win a prize. Eligible residents, or approximately 634,000 people, have received at least one vaccination.

Daniel Ostrov, a professor of mathematics at Santa Clara University, said both models need to be discussed.

“If the point of money is to vaccinate more people, I think the county-based model is probably more effective,” said Ostrov. “But we need to balance that with fairness, and the Oregon system can be considered unfair.”

“It’s like the House of Representatives vs. the Senate,” Ostrov added to the US House of Representatives, where state representatives are based on population size, and the Senate, where each state has two representatives regardless of the number of inhabitants there. Mentioned.

In any case, the chances of winning the Win Incentive Program on the California Vax were higher than in a regular lottery. According to Lottery USA, the odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot with a single lottery are 1 in 302.6 million.

However, while there is a year to win the Mega Millions jackpot in California, vaccine lottery winners have only 96 hours since they were first contacted to receive the prize. If the winner cannot be reached or the money is declined, an alternative will be randomly selected. It happened twice in a $ 50,000 lottery. The winners of Santa Clara and San Diego counties were missed and replaced by alternative candidates for Sacramento and Monterey.