Cuomo Unveils Scholarship Incentive to Increase Vaccination

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that New Yorkers between the ages of 12 and 17 who get vaccinated between now and July 7 would be entered to win a scholarship to a public college or university in New York state.

Cuomo said the state will hold a weekly drawing to award ten four-year scholarships to children in that age range who have been vaccinated. 

The program is retroactive, so any teens who have already been vaccinated still qualify. 

Cuomo said the vaccination rate has slowed down recently, as expected, but that the trend doesn’t mean vaccination efforts should stagnate. 

“We’ve seen a 47% decline in the number of people coming in for vaccinations,” Cuomo said. “The greatest need are the 12- to 17-year-olds. They are 5% of the current COVID tests, but they’re 10% of the positivity rate. That’s the highest differential of any age group.

Cuomo said that 12- to 17-year-olds have the lowest vaccination rate because they just became eligible for the inoculation. That age group couldn’t start receiving the vaccine until early May and, so far, only Pfizer has been made available to those recipients.

The scholarship incentive program comes less than a week after Cuomo also announced a program offering free lottery tickets to adults who get vaccinated. 

The top prize for that program is $5 million, but Cuomo said there’s a one-in-nine chance that anyone who participates will win a smaller prize.