NDP’s ‘Last Mile’ strategy includes $25,000 incentive, direct calls for unvaccinated

Need a little incentive with getting your COVID-19 vaccine? How does $25,000 sound?

That was just part of the NDP’s announcement Monday afternoon, with Leader Ryan Meili and Health Critic Vicki Mowat rolling out the details in front of Saskatoon’s Merlis Belsher Place.

“We know in the first round of the race between vaccines and variants, we saw the variants get ahead and we saw a third wave that was far worse than it should have been,” Meili explained.

The key elements of the strategy include phone calls to individuals who have yet to receive their doses of the vaccine, additional staffing for giving out the vaccines, more clinics, and the “Last Mile Lottery.”

“Let’s put some incentive in so that the one lucky vaccinator will win $25,000 when they’ve got their second dose. We can look at other prizes and other incentives, but this is happening around the world. It’s one more way to encourage people,” Meili explained.

That $25,000 would come from “provincial dollars,” Meili said. He then compared that $25,000 figure to the same amount it takes to have one individual in intensive care for a day.

In an emailed statement attributed to Minister of Health Paul Merriman, the government said it was not considering providing incentives for vaccination.

“We believe that protecting yourself and those around you from COVID-19 and ensuring Saskatchewan can reopen safely are pretty strong incentives for everyone to get vaccinated,” the statement said. “It appears that most Saskatchewan people would agree, as we continue to see strong uptake in our COVID-19 vaccination program.”

In terms of the phone calls, when Meili was asked if contact tracers may be bogged down with current workloads rather than contacting people directly, he replied it’s something that was happening when vaccinations first began.

“We did it in the first wave of (the) COVID-19 vaccine campaign. It’s a model that worked then and helped us to really move quickly through that first wave. We should be continuing to do that work,” he said.

Meili said he wants everybody, at every age, getting their vaccines.

“We prioritize the eldest. So if we’ve got older folks who should have had their first dose, or should have their first dose, they should be getting calls right away,” he said, before adding there’s a decreasing uptake in those in the 30-to-39 and 40-to-49 age ranges.

In the past week, there was a significant jump in the number of first doses given to those in the 12- to 17-year-old age group, which went from 26 per cent on May 30 to 39 per cent as of Sunday.

That increase coincided with the introduction of the school-based vaccination program in Saskatchewan.

However, there were little or no gains in first doses in the other age groups: Zero per cent in the 80-and-over age group (it stayed at 91), one per cent in the 70-to-79 age group (89 to 90), one per cent in the 60-to-69 category (83 to 84), one per cent in the 50-to-59 group (72 to 73), two per cent among those aged 40 to 49 (65 to 67), three per cent in the 30-to-39 category (53 to 56), and four per cent among those 18 to 29 (44 to 48).

The differences from week to week in second doses were more significant. The biggest gain was in the 70-to-79 age group, which went from 18 per cent complete as of May 30 to 52 per cent as of Sunday.

Second doses among the 80-and-over group went from 62 per cent to 75 per cent, while the percentage of those in their 60s who have received second doses went from six per cent to 17.

There have been more second doses than first doses administered in Saskatchewan in each of the past eight days.

As of Monday, individuals 60 and over or people who had received their first dose on or before March 29 were eligible to get a second dose.

Meili also mentioned that Saskatchewan is racing against the Delta variant, and he has worries that there’s a limited amount of sequencing in the province.

“That’s important. And we know that it’s a real concern. It’s more effective of evading the vaccine and makes people sicker,” he said.

His answer is more sequencing to ensure the variant is controlled in Saskatchewan.

The following charts, which were compiled by the Ministry of Health, show vaccination totals by age groups as of May 30 and as of Sunday.