{"id":62167,"date":"2021-06-29T21:42:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T03:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=62167"},"modified":"2021-06-29T21:42:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T03:42:07","slug":"is-kenney-bribing-albertans-with-the-vaccine-lottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2021\/06\/29\/is-kenney-bribing-albertans-with-the-vaccine-lottery\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Kenney bribing Albertans with the vaccine lottery?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brendan Alan has<\/strong> been fully vaccinated for a few months now because he\u2019s an EMT and says he is disappointed that people have to be bribed to do the right thing and get vaccinated. (Photo by Michaela Pitman\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I<\/span>t\u2019s summer in Alberta and Premier Jason Kenney just wants us to be able to enjoy it without risking another COVID-19 outbreak, and he\u2019s willing to engage in bribery to get there.\u00a0<\/s><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On Monday, June 14, Premier Jason Kenney announced that Alberta will be launching a COVID-19 vaccine lottery<\/a> in an attempt to get more Albertans vaccinated.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe need everyone on the fence, those who want to get a shot but have just been putting it off for a while, to get their dose now,\u201d he said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As of\u00a0June 16,\u00a03,583,406,\u00a0doses\u00a0of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Alberta.\u00a0At press,\u00a069.9\u00a0per cent of Albertans age 12+ have at least one dose and 24.2\u00a0per cent <\/s>of Albertans age 12+ have been fully vaccinated.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Anyone who has been fully vaccinated will be able to enter the lottery for a chance to\u00a0win one of\u00a0three\u00a0separate\u00a0$1-million prizes,\u00a0as well as additional incentives such as travel packages.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“There always will be some who will never get a vaccine of any kind. No fact and no plea to civic responsibility will sway them,” Kenney said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How does the average Calgarian feel about this lottery?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Paramedic\u00a0Brendan Alan is\u00a0appalled\u00a0and disappointed that Alberta\u00a0has to\u00a0resort to a lottery\u00a0in order to\u00a0sway citizens to do the right thing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf I were to just boil it down to something, I think it\u2019s bribery, which is Jason Kenney\u2019s solution to everything,\u201d said Alan.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As\u00a0a paramedic,\u00a0Alan was fully\u00a0vaccinated\u00a0in the early stages of the vaccine roll-out.\u00a0He says that he will enter the lottery just because he can.\u00a0But he is highly disappointed that others\u00a0have to\u00a0be bribed to do the right thing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Local Calgary resident and engineer Sarah Atkin feels differently. She has not been fully vaccinated and she does not plan to\u00a0do so\u00a0until there\u00a0is\u00a0more\u00a0research done on the\u00a0side–<\/s>effects of the vaccine.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Atkin suffers from an autoimmune disease that she has had to live with for 15 years. She will\u00a0not risk getting vaccinated right now, not even for the chance to win\u00a0$1-million.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf you try to bribe people with a lottery, cars, beer money and all this, it makes me question things,\u201d said Atkin.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0<\/span>Valentina\u00a0Jimenez, a waitress at\u00a0Ikuza\u00a0restaurant in Bridgeland,\u00a0says that at first,\u00a0she was skeptical of the\u00a0vaccine\u00a0but she got vaccinated anyway a month ago because it felt like the right thing to do.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Travel plans:<\/strong> Jimenez will get fully vaccinated because she can\u2019t wait for life to go back to normal and so that she can travel abroad once again. (Photo by Michaela Pitman\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt doesn’t motivate me to be honest. I know we need this vaccine to get back to normal,\u201d\u00a0Jimenez said.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One thing\u00a0Jimenez\u00a0can\u2019t wait to do again is travel\u00a0internationally. That\u2019s motivation\u00a0enough for her.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But for those Albertans who don\u2019t have that kind of motivation, Kenney hopes the chance to win $1 million will override their resistance. Vaccination rates have increased and hospital numbers are coming down and if people do continue to get vaccinated Alberta will be open for summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s summer in Alberta and Premier Jason Kenney just wants us to be able to enjoy it without risking another COVID-19 outbreak, and he\u2019s willing to engage in bribery to get there.\u00a0 On Monday, June [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":688,"featured_media":62171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S3 COVID bribery","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13,1560],"tags":[1532],"class_list":{"0":"post-62167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-city","8":"category-news","9":"category-pandemic","10":"tag-covid-19"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/688"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62167"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62191,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62167\/revisions\/62191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}