Vox: Beers, doughnuts, and discounts: The growing list of vaccine freebies

It’s been almost a month since all American adults were deemed eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine. About 50 percent of Americans have received one dose so far, and cases in the US are on the decline. And while the pool of people who have expressed hesitation about being vaccinated has shrunk, vaccine incentives have become mainstream, initiated by corporations and politicians alike. David Asch, executive director of the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation, said in a recent interview with the Association of American Medical Colleges that money only works if people are already interested in pursuing a behavior. “If someone really doesn’t want to get vaccinated, I’m not sure there’s an amount of money we’d be willing to offer that would also work,” he said. “If we do offer money, we might actually inflame their concerns. Someone who has a lot of distrust of the vaccine might think, ‘They’d never offer money if this was a good thing.’” This was a similar line of concern for employers, who worried that such strategies could be seen as coercive or even discriminatory to those who are medically unable to take vaccines. Read more at Vox.