NC has its second COVID lottery winner but are more people being vaccinated?
North Carolina announced its second $1 million COVID-19 vaccine lottery winner on Thursday, on a day that the state reported over 1,000 new cases for the first time since May.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, announced the winners at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
The $1 million winner was Natalie Everett, 55, from Pineville.
“Beyond excited, grateful and just very overwhelming,” Everett said after being announced the winner.
Everett said that she decided to get vaccinated after researching the vaccine and testing positive with COVID-19.
North Carolina also announced the winner of the second $125,000 scholarship, 16-year-old Jessica Klima from Greensboro.
She said she plans to use the scholarship to be trained as a physical therapist.
“My whole family was happy, jumping and screaming,” Klima said, when they found out she had won. “Still can’t believe it.”
Gov. Roy Cooper announced the vaccine lottery, called the Summer Cash Drawings, in June to provide an incentive for more people to get vaccinated, but the number of new doses administered each week has decreased for five straight weeks.
This week the state administered 25,501 doses, far down from the peak on the week of April 5, which was 690,143.
When Cooper first announced the lottery drawings, the percentage of adults in North Carolina with at least one dose sat around 55%.
As of Thursday that rate is 59%, but that is mostly due to the state adding vaccine data from federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Defense, The News & Observer reported.
Cohen said that access may be an issue.
“Folks need to make sure they have access to a vaccine,” she said. “We’re making sure that they know that there are hundreds of places you can get vaccinated.”
As vaccination rates have staggered, cases, hospitalizations and positive testing have started to increase over recent weeks after plateauing for months.
Hospitalizations, at 492 as of Thursday, have increased for five straight days.
The percentage of daily tests returned positive is increasing overall on average.
Tuesday’s rate, the latest data available, was 4.3%, and the two days prior to that both topped 5%, the first time since early May.
Public health officials say this increase in metrics is due to the delta variant spreading among unvaccinated people in North Carolina, the N&O reported earlier this week.
“It’s the dominant form of COVID now in our state,” Cohen said. “It is more contagious. It is stronger.”
The delta variant is a mutation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that is much more transmissible than the original strain and possibly more deadly.
State health officials say that the delta variant accounts for as many as 30% of new cases in North Carolina, possibly higher.
“We continue to see that more than 99% of the new COVID cases are in people who are not fully vaccinated,” Cohen said. “They are preventable with a COVID-19 vaccination, so don’t wait to vaccinate.”
“I don’t want to see anyone else get sick and certainly not lose their life to COVID,” she said, “particularly when we have this powerful tool to prevent it.”
How the lottery works
Those entered into the $1 million drawing were those 18 or older vaccinated with at least one dose. The scholarship drawing was for those age 12 to 17.
Both drawings occurred last week on Wednesday.
Those vaccinated with at least one dose prior to June 10 were entered into the drawings once. Those vaccinated on June 10 or after were entered twice.
Everett was vaccinated before June 10, and Klima was vaccinated afterwards.
In case the first names drawn didn’t agree to accept the prize publicly or could not be contacted, DHHS set aside 20 alternate names to go through.
Both Everett and Klima were the first names drawn.
This was the second of four drawings for both the $1 million and scholarship prizes.
The state announced the first winners on June 28. The third drawing will be on July 21.
The odds of winning the vaccine lottery are about 1 in 4 million. The odds of winning the Powerball lottery averages at 1 in 11.6 million, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.
Taxes must be paid on the $1 million prize, and the $125,000 scholarship does not guarantee acceptance any college or university.
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 3:26 PM with the headline "NC has its second COVID lottery winner but are more people being vaccinated?."