PhillyVoice: Philly Vax Sweepstakes awards cash prizes to first group of winners

The Philly Vax Sweepstakes aims to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates across the city, giving greater prize odds to ZIP codes with the lowest vaccination numbers. Philadelphia’s experiment incentivizing COVID-19 vaccination has paid off for the first 12 winners of the city’s ongoing sweepstakes, rewarding immunized city residents with cash prizes ranging from $1,000 to $50,000. City officials announced Friday that the winner of one of the two $50,000 prizes is 53-year-old Daniel Silva, an Oak Lane resident, who said he had been wavering about whether or not to get vaccinated. Funding for the Philly Vax Sweepstakes is provided by the Wharton School; Penn’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative; Penn’s Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics; and Flu Lab. “Although it is too soon to tell whether the sweepstakes has significantly boosted vaccination rates, based on the evidence that lotteries can motivate change, there is much optimism about the sweepstakes helping to get more Philadelphians vaccinated,” said Angela Duckworth, Co-Director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the Wharton School. Read more at Philly Voice.