MI Vaccination Lottery: 1st Winners To Be Announced This Week

LANSING, MI — The first winners of Michigan's COVID-19 vaccine lottery will be announced Wednesday, officials said in a news release.

The first-round winners of the MI Shot To Win Sweepstakes will be named at 2 p.m. Wednesday. The announcement originally was scheduled to take place Monday, but officials opted to give prize winners five days to sign and have notarized an Affidavit of Eligibility and other legal forms.

Officials said that as of Friday, more than 1.4 million people had signed up for the sweepstakes, while over 66,000 young Michiganders had signed up for the scholarship drawing.

See More: Michigan COVID Vaccination Lottery: What To Know

Officials have said the goal of the lottery is to increase the state's vaccination rate by about 9 percent in order to reach the statewide goal of having 70 percent of residents 16 and older vaccinated.

The MI Shot To Win Sweepstakes is the latest kickoff in a series of lottery-style raffles by other states such as Ohio's first-in-the-nation launch of the "Vax-a-Million" campaign. But Michiganders are hopeful their state will find more success at using the campaign as a means to increase vaccinations.

The Vax-a-Million lottery did not significantly impact Ohio's COVID-19 vaccination rates, a study from Boston University found.

In fact, reports of increasing vaccination rates following Gov. Mike DeWine's announcement of the lottery — which have been cited by the Whitmer administration in its announcement of a similar campaign in the Mitten State — likely were the result of expanding eligibility to people younger than 16, the study concluded.

See More: MI Hopes Its COVID Lottery Finds More Success Than Other States