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First $1M vaccination winner selected, but name won't be revealed for days

The drawing for the first of four $1 million cash prizes North Carolina will award for being vaccinated against coronavirus was held Wednesday morning, but it likely be several days before the winner's identity is known.

Posted Updated

By
Matthew Burns, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor, & Keely Arthur
and
Aaron Thomas, WRAL reporters
RALEIGH, N.C. — The drawing for the first of four $1 million cash prizes North Carolina will award for being vaccinated against coronavirus was held Wednesday morning, but it will likely be several days before the winner's identity is known.
"It's crazy. It hit me when the number got drawn," said Hattie Gawande, DHHS senior policy and intergovernmental affairs adviser.

The winner was chosen via a random number generator at the North Carolina Education Lottery, and the state Department of Health and Human Services will determine whose vaccination record in the state database corresponds with the number that was generated.

Gawande said DHHS must go through a "lengthy process" of verifying that person is qualified to win the prize before actually contacting the person to get their consent to receive the funds and release their name publicly.

"We drew one top-tier winner and 20 alternates," she said. "If the person is unwilling to meet terms and conditions, if they don’t return our phone call within 48 hours – anything that impedes the ability to claim their prize – we’ll move on to the next alternate."

North Carolina set up the incentive program to boost coronavirus vaccination rates. Anyone 18 or older who has received at least one shot of vaccine is eligible, and people who got the shot on or after June 10 got entered twice.

The random number generator also picked the first winner of four $125,000 college scholarships for anyone ages 12 to 17 who has gotten at least one vaccine dose.

There were 4.9 million entries for the $1 million prize and 348,000 entries for the scholarship.

What you need to know about the cash drawing program:

Any North Carolina resident 18 or older who's received at least one vaccine shot from a health care provider linked to the state's Coronavirus Vaccine Management System.

The state Department of Health and Human Services also has worked with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the federal Tribal Health Program to get information on people vaccinated by either agency into the CVMS, so they are are eligible to win. However, DHHS isn't able to access data for people who were vaccinated by the Department of Defense, so they aren't eligible.

Anyone who lives outside of North Carolina, even if they were vaccinated in the state, also is ineligible, as is any North Carolina resident who was vaccinated in another state and whose information isn't in CVMS.

Also, Gov. Roy Cooper, DHHS Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen, DHHS employees and contractors with access to CVMS data, drawing program designers, 529 savings account managers and immediate family members of all of these people aren't eligible.

Four Summer Cash 4 College drawings also will be held in which students ages 12 to 17 who have received at least one dose of the vaccine are eligible to win $125,000 scholarships to the college of their choice.

Each award will be placed in an NC 529 college savings plan account.

DHHS has assigned each vaccination record in CVMS with a unique number. The North Carolina Education Lottery will use a randomized number generator to select the winning number and 20 alternate winning numbers for each drawing, and DHHS will match those numbers with the corresponding CVMS record to find the winners.

No personal or health information is ever shared for purposes of selecting winners.

June 23, July 7, July 21 and Aug. 4

The cutoff for each drawing is the preceding Sunday, so any vaccination information must be in the CVMS by then to be eligible. The deadline for the final drawing would be Aug. 1.

Anyone vaccinated on or after June 10 gets two entries for each drawing.

DHHS will contact each winner by phone or email, and they have 48 hours to accept the prize.

The winners also will be listed on SummerVaxCash.com. (In order to receive the prize, winners must agree to having their names released publicly.)
Anyone who didn't give their health care provider phone or email contact information when they received their shots can contact them to update their information or log onto the state's COVID-19 Vaccine Portal to update the information themselves.

Don't respond to any letter, email, phone call or social media post asking you to send money to get the prize. Also, never give credit card, Social Security, driver’s license, passport or bank account numbers over the phone to someone promising you a prize.

The $1 million prizes are considered income and are subject to state and federal withholding taxes.

The college scholarships will have tax advantages through the 529 program, but it may be subject to taxes once the funds are withdrawn from the account.

Cooper set aside $4.5 million of the billions of dollars the state has received in federal pandemic relief to pay the program.

Do the prizes affect vaccination numbers?

Gov. Roy Cooper announced the cash prizes and scholarships two weeks ago to boost North Carolina's lagging vaccination rates.

So far, only 52 percent of adults age 18 or older statewide are fully vaccinated, while another 3 percent have received at least one dose of vaccine. After a rush early this year, those figures have been inching up in recent weeks.

Locally, Orange County has the highest vaccination rate, with 64 percent of adults with at least one dose, while Hoke County has the lowest rate, at 22 percent.

Similar incentive programs in other states have boosted vaccination rates, but North Carolina hasn't yet seen the expected surge in vaccinations.

On Tuesday, for example, only a couple of people showed up for a vaccination clinic at Eastern Carolina Medical Center, in Benson.

"Throwing the lottery into it is not helping that much," said Andrew Blum, who is in charge of vaccinations at the clinic. "I’ve only had two people come in, and that wasn’t even the real reason why they came in. It was just a bonus."

James Mitchell was one of those who got vaccinated Tuesday.

"I work at Amazon. Everyone [there] is doing them, and I said, 'Why not?'" Mitchell said, adding that he was on board with the vaccine far before the million-dollar incentive.

"I’ll take it, but my health is more important than a million dollars," he said.

Blum blames conspiracy theories for squelching people's desire to be vaccinated.

"[It's] anything from causing infertility to that the government can track us, different things like that that you see on Facebook or the internet," he said.

Rather than the $1 million prizes, Blum said, personal conversations have been more successful at boosting vaccination rates.

"[It's] just letting them know where I come from and why I got the shot myself and I why I get everyone in my family the shot as well," he said.

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