In this week's episode of Snollygoster, Ohio's politics podcast from WOSU, hosts Mike Thompson and Steve Brown discuss the increase in vaccinations and publicity for Ohio's Vax-a-Million drawing.
Who Want To Be A Millionaire?
Since last week's announcement of the million-dollar drawings for getting vaccinated there have been some changes. The state wanted to just use voter registration roles and pick names, but now they have switched to a website. Residents have to manually enter to win and must give permission for the state to access their health records.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine admits the whole thing sounds a little silly, but he’s open to anything that helps.
And people are registering. The site got 25 million visits within hours of going live. Officials said more than a million Ohioans have registered and after three weeks of declines in the state’s vaccination rate, the state is seeing a slight surge in people between the ages of 30 and 64.
Snollygoster Of The Week
It seems some folks can't help themselves from comparing one thing or another to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
This week, State Rep. Jennifer Gross of suburban Cincinnati introduced the Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act. It would prohibit businesses and schools from requiring their employees or customers to get vaccinated.
In defending the bill, Gross called businesses requiring proof of vaccination "eerily similar” to Nazi’s forcing Jews to wear yellow Star of David patches.
Ironically, it is the state of Israel that mandated vaccines to participate in leisure activities. They even called it the Green Badge System and it has had great success getting people vaccinated and stopping the spread of COVID.
Send questions and comments to snollygoster@wosu.org.
