Do incentives improve vaccination rates? The experiment continues

The NPC Healthbiz Weekly is here to keep on informing you. It's your weekly briefing on topics pertinent to healthcare marketers and executives published in cooperation with Peak Pharma Solutions. 

⇒ Issue #189 (In numerology, 189 represents humanitarianism.)
⇒ Worldwide Covid cases as of 05/20: 164,953,561*
⇒ Worldwide Covid fatalities as of 05/20: 3,419,251*
⇒ Confirmed Covid cases in Canada as of 05/20: 1,350,897*
⇒ Confirmed Covid fatalities in Canada as of 05/20: 25,050*
⇒ Number of vaccine doses administered to Canadians as of 05/20: 19,444,593*

May 20, 2021—Welcome to the Thursday CurveFlattener. It’s Editorial Director Allan Ryan tapping the wireless keyboard, coming to you directly from the tender-fruit capital of Canada, Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula. Here’s a news flash unrelated to Covid: After a cool-ish early spring, the cherry trees here are finally in blossom.

On Tuesday (5/10), the U.S. feds revealed that 60% of Americans had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. This progress in total population vaccination numbers in that country is substantial, especially compared to Canada’s total vaccination rate of 38.87%, as of May 8. The new U.S. data has led to revised recommendations on mask-wearing and other Covid-19 measures in some states. 

According to this recent poll, the other side of the Covid coin is that 40% of Americans have not yet been vaccinated, and 25% of this number proclaim they will never, ever get jabbed. 

Presented with this substantial hurdle on the Thruway to reaching herd immunity, some states and municipal governments in the U.S. have developed incentives to encourage vaccination. Here’s a shortlist of inducements devised to help convince some vaccine nay-sayers to finally roll up their sleeves and say, “Sure, I’d like a beer.” 

• A free Krispy Kreme doughnut (present a Covid vaccine card, and you could be the proud recipient of a 1,200-calorie doughnut every day for the rest of the year. Hey, starting tomorrow, that could add up to 232 doughnuts)
• A free beer (New Jersey’s ‘Shot and beer’ program) 
• A free pre-rolled marijuana joint (#jointsforjabs, Washington, D.C.)
• Tickets to a NY Yankees or NY Mets baseball game (New York)
• $100 cash (Maryland).

But now, the stakes are rising to encourage even more people to get a vaccine shot. Ohio has created a lottery for state residents who have been vaccinated. Beginning May 25, a US$1 million prize will be awarded each Wednesday for five weeks. Residents of the state who are 18 years of age or older and have received at least one vaccine dose will be entered automatically in the lottery if their names are in a voting database, or they can register at a website. And the organizers of the lottery do not forget those under 18 years of age. Under 18s who have been vaccinated or get vaccinated will have a chance of skateboarding away with one of five full-ride four-year college scholarships. 

After the lottery gambit was announced, vaccinations for Ohio residents aged 30 to 74 years rose by more than 6%, according to this NBC News report,

“Not only have we achieved our goal of increasing public awareness and interest, but we have slowed what was a consistent decline [in vaccinations], and in certain age groups, we’re seeing an increase again,” state Health Director Stephanie McCloud told the new organization. “This is doing exactly what we intended it to do.”

But in this article, Emily Largent, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, said those who are holding out about getting vaccinated are either not buying the scientific argument in favour of the vaccine, or have other personal reasons.

“A donut or a ticket is not going to address their concerns,” she told ABC News. “We’re still going to need other interventions.” In January, Dr. Largent and her co-authors contributed this report to the JAMA Network, analyzing the problems created by paying people to get vaccinated against Covid-19. 

The NPC Podcast is back for another season. The National Pharmaceutical Congress organizers are proud to release our new weekly podcast series, hosted by Peter Brenders. Peter's guest this week is Gordon McCauley of adMare BioInnovations . Listen here now, or download the episode and play it at your convenience. The NPC Podcast is presented in cooperation with Impres Pharma.

COVID CHRONICLE 05/20/2021

• According to this report in JAMA Network Open, neurologic symptoms in patients with Covid-19 can indicate an increased risk of in-hospital mortality. The researchers, led by Dr. Sherry Chou, professor of critical care medicine, neurology, and neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, evaluated 3,744 patients in 13 countries and across four continents. They discovered the most common neurological signs and/or syndromes were acute encephalopathy (49%), coma (17%), and stroke (6%).
  
  
• Perhaps Canadian scientists aren’t wrong: Delaying the second Pfizer vaccine dose for 12 weeks appears to significantly increase antibody responses in older people, according to this study from the U.K.’s University of Birmingham. Researchers reported that extending the second dose interval to 12 weeks increased the antibody response 3.5 times over people who received their second dose at three weeks. 
  
  
• This paper published in Frontiers in Psychiatry investigated the potential under-reporting of Covid-19 cases among indigenous people in Brazil. Researchers compared official data released by Brazil’s Ministry of Health to data collected by two Indigenous community-based surveillance organizations in 25 Special Indigenous Sanitary Districts (DSEI) in the Brazilian Amazon. The investigation concluded that the incidence and death rates due to Covid-19 among Indigenous Peoples were higher than those observed in the general population and twice as high as the data presented by Brazil’s government. They also found that illegal economic activities increased the risk of spreading Covid-19 in the Amazon areas. 

TODAY CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON 

Chronicle.Academy is pleased to announce a new program in Direct-to-Consumer Marketing for Canadian life science professionals. The program will be offered in three interactive modules, concluding with a live seminar. Find out more about this innovative structured learning opportunity by clicking here. 

WHAT’S ON THE DOGGY MENU TONIGHT

Today has been declared National Dog Rescue Day in the U.S., and since we live just a few kilometres from the international border, the beagles have declared that the holiday must be observed. The day recognizes all of the benefits abandoned and abused canines can bring to humans, and there will be no argument from anyone in the Ryan household. So, to celebrate, we’ll be offering a few extra cookies to the hounds tonight. That's Trudy, who legged it out of an automotive junkyard north of Barrie, Ont., and Bonnie, located through Gentle Jake’s Coonhound Rescue. Salute, girls. 

HERE’S TO FRIDAY

Tomorrow, publisher Mitch Shannon will be back in the driver’s seat. On Monday, watch for the Skin Spectrum Weekly e-newsletter, and on Tuesday, the NPC Healthbiz Weekly will be distributed. You can subscribe through the links above at no charge.