Gov. Tim Walz announced Thursday that the state will be giving out prizes to 100,000 people who get vaccinated against COVID-19 between Memorial Day weekend and the end of June.

Prizes are nice, but fairly mundane, like Minnesota State Fair tickets, amusement park passes or fishing licenses. Kind like the tote bags or coffee mugs given out by Minnesota Public Radio during their fundraising drives.

That’s nothing compared to Ohio, where the state announced its first Vax-a-Million lottery winner. Abbigail Bugenske of Silverton, Ohio, won a million dollars in a random drawing, while Eighth grader Joseph Costello of Englewood won a 4-year college scholarship. The state will do it again over the next three Wednesdays.

Several states are resorting to a variety of incentives to encourage people to get vaccinations against COVID-19. It’s hard to understand why they would need to. The benefits of vaccination are pretty evident — it protects you from catching a disease that has killed around half a million Americans in the past year.

There are some people who are simply not going to get the vaccine. They don’t trust it, they think it will make them sick, or put microchips in their body so the government can track them. Then there are others who just don’t like needles, or who think they will be protected when everyone else gets vaccinated, or just don’t have the time. These people might respond to incentives.

We hope they do. The more people who receive the vaccine, the healthier we all in general will be. That’s the big prize for vaccinations.