Is Walmart gift card incentive working? Possibly
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO)-- The race is still on to get Coloradans vaccinated, with El Paso County having the second-highest number of confirmed Delta COVID-19 variant infections in the state.
On July 21, Governor Jared Polis announced anyone who gets a COVID-19 vaccine at select locations would receive a $100 Walmart gift card.
Five days after the announcement, the state says the program is showing promise.
The numbers from mobile clinics have varied depending on the source. A representative from Nomi Health says the organization has helped with the Boulder clinic the past two weekends. The weekend after gift cards were made available, a representation with Nomi said they say a 109% boost in vaccinations administered.
Two months ago, the state logged that it had given out 155,00+ doses of the vaccine during the week of May 23.
But since, vaccination numbers have gone down every week--- except for one, the week following the governor's lottery announcement.
Now, the question is whether or not the Walmart gift card incentive is working. The state didn't have a response readily available for use, other than to say, that anecdotally it is.
Numbers KRDO pulled from the state's COVID-19 website do seem to show a shift in trends. Vaccination numbers had been going down by at least 19% every week since mid-June.
But the last two weeks show a different story. Vaccination rate slides have only slowed by 1% during the week of July 11, and are down just 3% in the last week-- when the gift card campaign began.
Whether that stabilization in vaccine rates is because of gift cards, or something else, like concerns over the delta variant, remains to be seen.
How long the program will stick around also remains to be seen. The gift cards are being offered while supplies last, but the state has not said how many are still on hand.
