Vax-2-School Lottery To Expand Eligibility To Younger Ohioans

OHIO — Ohio's Vax-2-School program will soon expand to include children ages 5 to 11.

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be approved for children as young as 5 this week. Once the CDC approves use of the vaccine in younger children, the Vax-2-Schools program will automatically expand to include this new group of kids.

The Ohio Vax-2-School program will give away $2 million in scholarships to eligible Ohioans. Prizes include 150 $10,000 scholarships and five $100,000 grand prize scholarships.

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To date, approximately 6.4 million Ohioans over the age of 11 have received a COVID-19 vaccine. That's 65 percent of the eligible population. However, the group with the slowest uptake are young Ohioans, particularly those ages 12 to 17.

"Vaccines offer the best protection from COVID-19, and the Ohio Vax-2-School program is an added incentive to be vaccinated for those in the eligible age group, currently 12-25, who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This applies to vaccinations received at any point since the COVID-19 vaccines have been available," the Ohio Department of Health said in a statement.

The Vax-2-School program was introduced despite some research showing Ohio's earlier lottery-based vaccine incentive program, Vax-a-Million, failed to drive interest or uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Boston University researchers instead found that the state's uptick in new vaccinations was likely the result of expanding eligibility (to people as young as 17 at the time), and had little to do with the lottery program.

"Our results suggest that state-based lotteries are of limited value in increasing vaccine uptake. Therefore, the resources devoted to vaccine lotteries may be more successfully invested in programs that target underlying reasons for vaccine hesitancy and low vaccine uptake," said corresponding author Dr. Allan J. Walkey, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.