$1.4 Million Apartment, Tesla, Gold Bars - Vaccine Giveaways Get Flashier

When the Covid vaccination rollout started, the biggest material prize was an Instagramable sticker. Now in Hong Kong, you could potentially score a Tesla or even an apartment in the world's most-expensive housing market. With gold bars, a diamond Rolex and a $100,000 shopping spree also up for grabs, Hong Kong's vaccine lotteries are easily the flashiest. Yet it's far from the only location rolling out eye-catching incentives to try and boost flagging vaccination rates. Russia's giving away snowmobiles. West Virginians can score lifetime hunting licenses and custom rifles. In Alabama, people who are vaccinated got offered a chance to drive on a speedway track. As the delta variant rips through the world, pleas for people to get vaccinated are becoming more forceful in countries fortunate enough to have abundant supplies. Governments and private businesses are trying a range of tactics, from ads featuring reassuring messages from trusted local figures - like doctors or hospital workers - to efforts in places like France to limiting access to public venues. Giveaways are the less politically fraught option, though they have raised ethical questions. While policymakers don't expect such incentives to have much effect on the outright skeptical, the hope is they may give those who are procrastinating a push over the line.