The Colorado Springs Gazette final

New sites added for vaccination giveaways

BY SETH KLAMANN The Denver Gazette

Colorado added a batch of new locations where residents can get vaccinated and receive $100 Walmart gift cards this week, extending its latest vaccination push.

The new locations span the state and continue through Friday. Gift cards are available to every person who’s eligible to be vaccinated and hasn’t yet been. There are a finite number of cards, the state said in a press release, and they’ll be available as supplies last.

In Colorado Springs, giveaways will be at Marian House, 14 W. Bijou St., 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Gov. Jared Polis announced the card push last week, shortly after two previous incentives — $1 million giveaways and $50,000 scholarships — ended earlier this month. Thus far, more than 3,100 Walmart gift cards have been doled out in Colorado, a state spokeswoman said in an email.

Polis has said all of the incentive programs are aimed at the wait-and-see crowd, and he’s acknowledged that the efforts won’t convince those flatly opposed to inoculations. But that wait-and-see crowd is thinning out, he said last week, and those Coloradans who are actively resistant now make up a significant share of the state population that has yet to be inoculated.

The gift card program has been in place for just under a week, and much of the vaccination data from that time period is still incomplete, according to the state’s data dashboard.

Generally, however, Colorado has averaged fewer than 10,000 doses delivered each day through July, the lowest mark of the pandemic yet and a sign of the difficulties of reaching the holdouts.

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2021-07-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/281672552977566

The Gazette, Colorado Springs