Vaccine Lottery Regret Sets In as Wasteful, Ineffective Scheme Becomes Apparent to Left Too

RALEIGH – All the cool kids were doing it and that meant Governor Roy Cooper couldn’t resist joining in; lest he be viewed as an inadequate Democrat for not coaxing more people into taking experimental vaccines for a disease on the wane. So along Cooper went with a vaccine lottery, a big cash giveaway to entice more people to get jabbed.

From the outset, most on the Right felt confident this wasn’t going to work, was a waste of money, and just another example of profligate coercion that made a game out of our tax dollars. Now, it appears, the Left is picking up on the policy failure that is the vaccine lottery.

In an op-ed published by the Leftists at NC Policy Watch, a Left-leaning Durham high school student lambastes the Cooper administration’s unforced error, slicing and dicing the vaccine lottery for wasting money when it could have gone toward reopening schools, among other things.

From the op-ed in NC Policy Watch:

“[…] But where is this money coming from? The lottery is using federal COVID-19 relief funds, money that could go to safely reopening schools, rebuilding our broken infrastructure and helping families put food on the table. All of these efforts would improve the lives of large numbers of people, but the lottery is improving the lives of only eight.

[…] Furthermore, an individual only has to have received one dose of the vaccine to be entered in the lottery. And at a time when 8% of adults are skipping their second dose, the lottery’s halfhearted attempts could have real consequences.

Rather than identifying more effective and beneficial ways to improve vaccination rates–such as expanding access to transportation or mandating paid leave for workers going to get vaccinated–North Carolina went with a lottery, which has only improved vaccination rates by 1% despite having been announced weeks ago. […]

Public confidence in the government is already at an all time low, and bribing citizens to get the vaccine isn’t exactly a trust-building endeavor. […]”

The writer is a smart girl, evidently engaged, and though an apparent fan of Big Government and collectivism, she points out the obvious drawbacks of Cooper’s policy blunder. And a Leftist outfit published it.

That says a lot about just how much Cooper missed the mark. Now, if vaccination rates had jumped by 10 points in a week, they might be singing a different tune; but as it is it is impossible to ignore.

Nevertheless, the lottery will go on, and a few people will get a lot of COVID relief money funded by federal taxpayers and inflation-absorbing consumers everywhere.