Democratic candidate and former Representative John Delaney has an interesting proposal for overcoming anti-vaccination sentiments:
Pay people to take a covid vaccine. The vaccines are likely to arrive at the same moment Washington is, belatedly, taking up much-needed stimulus legislation. The timing couldn’t be better: Money would go into Americans’ pockets just when the U.S. economy can begin fully reopening with a vaccinated population that can go about their daily lives without fear of catching the disease or infecting others. [WaPo]
Injecting stimulus into the economy by getting an injection. He has an example of this working, too:
Would $1,500 encourage more people to get vaccinated? It turns out there’s evidence that financial incentives do increase vaccination rates. A study in India found that giving lentils at each vaccination and a set of plates during the final vaccination increased the vaccination completion rate by a factor of six.
Unfortunately, we’re not India and, hopefully, we won’t require multiple injections, at least not per year. Nor are Indian objections necessarily the same as Western objections. And what if the vaccinations fade out quickly, requiring another injection each year?
This isn’t a solution that’ll scale well, I think.
But if only one or two injections are necessary to achieve a multi-year immunity, then this might be an option to pursue. And it’ll certainly encourage those who really need the cash to come in and get injected.
