New Mexico is now less than a week away from lifting its COVID-19 mitigation measures for the first time in 16 months, according to CBS News, but only after successfully reaching the required 60% vaccination rate by offering $100 incentives to reluctant participants.
The state was forced to spend $3 million of taxpayer money to give vaccines to those previously reluctant to get their first shots. To boost the number of vaccinated people, the state offered $100 incentives last week, KRQE News reported.
“We’re pulling out the stops," Matthew Bieber from the New Mexico Department of Health told KRQE. "Obviously, offering a hundred bucks, we are pretty confident it’s going to boost our numbers. It’s really hard to predict how much.”
The strategy worked, drawing enough people who couldn't previously find the time to get vaccinated out of the woodwork to collect their doses and the $100.
"Either they're working so many hours [that] they don't have the time to get a vaccination – they may be working two jobs and its hard to schedule a vaccination or risk having even a one-day reaction that keeps you from the job," Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber said on his weekly "WebberCast" last week.
"I have my mask on even though I'm vaccinated, because we are not done yet," Webber said. "We are not out of the woods. We have not completed the job. So keep in the front of your mind the fact that we're still seeing people getting sick. We're averaging something like seven, eight new cases a day in Santa Fe County."
Webber stated that despite 75% of Santa Fe County residents having received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and 65% both doses, current coronavirus mitigation guidelines must continue until the state as a whole hits 60%, which it finally did this week thanks to the incentive program.
