The new ‘I voted’ sticker? Vaccination stickers. Take a look at some of the best

For many, getting a COVID-19 vaccine is the light at the end of a very long tunnel.

Exciting as it may be, officials have cautioned against sharing vaccination cards online — for fear scammers can get hold of your personal information — so some have taken to posting photos of their “I got vaccinated” stickers, instead.

Experts have pointed out these are the new “I voted” sticker — a way to advertise that you’ve done your part in slowing the spread of the highly contagious virus and encourage others to do the same.

“We’re very influenced by what we perceive people in our community to be doing so if everybody else is doing something it’s attractive to us,” Katherine Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative, told ABC News.

The World Health Organization appears to agree.

Last fall, the organization said in a report that finding ways for people to signal they’ve gotten a vaccine “either on social media, in news media or in person, can contribute to making the social norm more salient.”

By December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had released sticker templates for vaccine providers — orange and white versions with bandages in the shape of a ‘V’ and the statement “I got my COVID-19 vaccine!”

It wasn’t long before groups started to design their own.

Major Holli Nelson, part of the communications team for West Virginia’s interagency COVID task force, was inspired to design a special sticker for West Virginia after seeing the CDC’s, Bustle reported.

“‘I Voted’ stickers [show] that people were so proud to have participated in democracy,” Nelson told the outlet. “So we thought, ‘How about we show off being proud to be vaccinated?’”

She used the West Virginia’s blue and gold colors, incorporated an outline of the state and added #WVStrong.

New York City put about $5 million into its “NYC Vaccine for All” campaigns, which include vaccination stickers as well as multi-media advertisements in 15 languages, Bustle reported. The stickers read “I got the shot.”

To top it off, a clinic in New Jersey apparently set up a selfie station for the freshly-vaccinated to snap a photo, The Verge reported.

Some, however, aren’t sure the stickers and other campaigns are enough to convince those who are on the fence to get vaccinated.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Could it help a little bit? Sure. I guess the question though is where are people walking around wearing a sticker,” Dan Salmon, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC, adding that concerns about the vaccine likely can’t be addressed with a major media campaign.

Still, some health professionals say stickers help the public feel involved in ending the pandemic.

“When I [hear] pharmacists saying, ‘Don’t forget your sticker!’ at vaccine clinics, people are so happy,” Nelson told Bustle. “The people doing the administration of the vaccine are doing so much to make people feel a part of the solution. It’s all these community partners, even at the lowest level, who really drive this home.”

Here are some of the coolest COVID-19 vaccination stickers.:

This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 8:40 AM with the headline "The new ‘I voted’ sticker? Vaccination stickers. Take a look at some of the best."