Unlike many things you'll read today, I'm not going to even attempt to tell you what to think about this particular story. I know that adherents to the call for everyone to get the vaccine will take this one way, and the vaccine-hesitant will look at it entirely differently.
If you're someone who's been experiencing "vaccine hesitancy," it may seem like you're the lone hold-out among people you know, or the public in general. However, that's just not the case at all.
I'm not saying the contest is rigged but, in what seems like standard Illinois practices, Rockford and Northern Illinois don't seem to be a part of the party.
When the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) says that it is fully adopting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new masking guidelines, it's a pretty safe bet that others will follow suit.
When there's enough talk about disallowing people who are unvaccinated against COVID-19 access to airplanes, trains, buses, schools, universities, etc., it should come as no surprise that fake certificates are available for a price.
If you've gotten the COVID-19 vaccination, you probably did it to protect yourself from contracting the coronavirus, expecting no reward whatsoever beyond virus avoidance.
While Governor Pritzker and his administration are saying "Hey! Get yourself vaccinated against COVID-19 and you could win a pile of money in a vax lottery," The University of Illinois is saying "You want to be a student here? Get vaccinated."
Governor Pritzker figures that you might need an incentive to go out and get vaccinated against COVID-19, even after 70 percent of the state's adults have received at lease one vaccine dose.