Georgia launches lottery to facilitate Covid-19 vaccination program

Georgia launches a lottery to boost vaccination rates

Vaccinate and Win – The Georgian National Lottery Company announced that everyone who has been vaccinated at least once will have the opportunity to win cash prizes.

Every day 100 ($ 32) and 500 ($ 160) GEL will be drawn, 1,000 ($ 320) to 10,000 ($ 3205) GEL will be drawn once a week, and, during the final drawing which will be held on December 31 on the Georgian Public Broadcaster, 100,000 GEL ($ 32,051) will be drawn.

The lottery will be held at www.stopcov.lotto.ge every day at 12:00, and weekly on Monday, after the end of the daily lottery.

As for the lottery tickets, the vaccinated will receive them free of charge at the time of vaccination.

The drawing will start on September 13, and all vaccinated people throughout Georgia will take part in it. Users will be identified using the identification code entered in the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health [NCDC] database when the first vaccine was registered.

The statement explains that if a citizen’s ticket wins the daily lottery once, then it will no longer participate in the next daily lottery, but will participate in the weekly and final lotteries;

The company says that the earlier a person is vaccinated, the more draws they will take part in and, accordingly, their chances of winning will be higher.

“The goal of the lottery is to facilitate the vaccination process, increase the number of people vaccinated, and increase loyalty and trust in the vaccination process”, the company said.

In recent months, up to 6,000 cases of coronavirus infection and up to 80 deaths have been registered daily in Georgia. However, on September 7, the smallest number of new cases compared to the previous days was recorded – 1,965. Director of the Center for Disease Control Amiran Gamkrelidze said that this is not a reliable figure.

According to him, there were server delays, due to which not all results are uploaded to the portal.

“These results will probably be uploaded today, and tomorrow we will see how many cases there will be”, Gamkrelidze said.

At a briefing on August 18, Deputy Health Minister Tamar Gabunia said infection rates are still high and there are no signs of stabilization in any region of Georgia.

The Center for Disease Control says that if the number of positive test results is no less than 4%, doctors will not be able to recommend the resumption of in-person studies in schools and universities.

As of September 7, 1,340,062 doses of the vaccine have been used in Georgia:

850, 868 people have been vaccinated with a single dose – 29.8% of the adult population;

489 194 people are now fully vaccinated- 17.1% of the adult population.