Wichita State offers more than $100,000 in incentives for COVID-19 vaccinated students

Wichita State University is offering more than $100,000 in incentives for students who receive a COVID-19 vaccine, university officials announced Friday.

Just two days before the announcement, Wichita hospital officials asked to have the hospital status on the Sedgwick County COVID-19 dashboard changed from yellow to red (critical) as the delta variant has led to a surge of younger and sicker patients. Kansas State University, University of Kansas and Pittsburg State University have all previously announced vaccine incentives. States have also offered incentives for people to get vaccinated — a 22-year-old in Ohio won $1 million.

Public health experts have estimated 70-85% of the entire population will need to be fully vaccinated to reach herd immunity. Currently, about 51% of the population is vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Wichita State’s incentive is open to all degree-bound students enrolled for the fall semester.

Students who submit their vaccine documentation through the Shocker portal by Oct. 8 will have $250 applied to their account. Those students will also be submitted into a lottery system to win one of 20 scholarships for spring “tuition and fees, up to an amount of $5,000.”

Unvaccinated students would need to start their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by Sept. 17, Moderna by Sept. 10 or Johnson & Johnson by Oct. 8 to meet the fully vaccinated deadline, according to a Wichita State news release. Johnson & Johnson is a one-dose vaccine and the others are two.

More details about the initiative can be found on Wichita State University’s website. WSU students can get a free vaccine at student health services or Sedgwick County’s vaccination clinic.

Earlier this month, WSU president Richard Muma announced that staff, students and visitors would have to wear masks in classrooms and laboratories.

“Given this increasing positivity rate and the dangers associated with the Delta variant, the university is taking proactive steps to mitigate spread of this variant on our campus,” he said. “Therefore, effective immediately, all students, faculty, staff, and visitors — regardless of vaccination status — will be required to wear a mask in all campus classrooms and laboratories. Additionally, we encourage all members of our campus community to wear masks in all other indoor campus locations.”

Also on Friday, Gov. Laura Kelly urged Kansans to get vaccinated and wear masks as the COVID-19 delta variant causes hospitals to fill up.

“I learned Wednesday night that more COVID patients had been admitted to our hospitals on that day than on any other single day since the pandemic invaded Kansas,” she said. “These patients are younger and they’re sicker than those infected (before a vaccine was available). Fortunately, though, we are not at the point of no return. Armed with the COVID-19 vaccine we can stop the delta variant before it overwhelms our state.”

She said there is a lot of misinformation out there but the facts are vaccines are safe and masks work to slow the spread of the virus.

On Friday night after hours of comments and even a perceived threat, the Sedgwick County Commission voted against a mask mandate recommended by Sedgwick County Health Officer Dr. Garold Minns.

This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 3:23 PM.