A SC college is getting aggressive with vaccine incentives. Is that a model to follow?

When Sen. Lindsey Graham tested positive for COVID-19 this week, he Tweeted that he believed his flu-like symptoms could have been much worse were it not for the vaccine he received.

“I am very glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now,” Graham said.

It is the unvaccinated that are filling hospital beds and dying across the Palmetto State at an alarming rate thanks to both the highly-transmissible delta variant and a loosening of restrictions in public spaces.

But if avoiding a hospital stay or even death isn’t incentive enough, just about every state and U.S. territory has a promotion or giveaway in place designed to encourage vaccinations.

In Alabama, the Talladega Superspeedway is offering people aged 16 and older who choose to be tested and/or vaccinated the chance to drive their car or truck on the 2.66-mile track.

“Drivers and their riders will take two laps behind a pace car at highway speed, including the 33-degree-high banks,” the National Governors Association website notes.

Hawaii has offered a long list of prizes including a pair of roundtrip tickets courtesy of Alaska Airlines, snacks for a year from Enjoy Snacks/KTM and a year’s worth of pizza from Papa John’s.

And then there’s Ohio Vax-a-Million, five weekly drawings for up to $1 million.

Success rates have varied, but according to Scientific American less than a week after the Ohio program was announced, the Ohio Department of Health said vaccination rates jumped by 28 percent.

Now, Coastal Carolina University in Conway, which is not requiring vaccinations, is joining in with its own incentive program designed to boost vaccination rates on campus as students return to school on Aug. 18.

The Teal Nation Vaccinations Incentives Program will award four $2,500 scholarships each week for 10 weeks in the fall semester and 10 weeks in the spring, totaling 80 scholarships. It will also award two Grand Prize Scholarships providing full tuition, room and board for one semester at the school.

University President Michael T. Benson said in a statement that he read about other incentives, “but I don’t think that anyone is doing it quite as aggressively as we are.”

The program is being funded with $300,000 in federally-allotted CARES Act funds.

“We are pretty excited about it,” Benson said. “ And, I hope students will take it seriously.”

So far, it looks like they are. University spokesman Jerry Rashid said that as of Friday morning about 1,000 students, 10 percent of the student body, had already uploaded their vaccination records just two days after the incentives were announced.

South Carolina doesn’t currently appear on the National Governors Association list of states with incentives.

If the response at Coastal Carolina is any indicator, maybe it should.

This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 12:35 PM.