Coronavirus Relief: Use Kristi’s “Surplus” to Incentivize Vaccination?

Last week Governor Kristi Noem told the South Dakota Legislature that we have $224 million in one-time money to spend during this fiscal year. That ridiculous and unprecedented “surplus” is fabricated entirely from the federal coronavirus relief dollars that Governor Noem has refused to deploy in actual coronavirus relief.

Odds are that, just as occurred during our October Special Session, our visionless and spineless Legislature will rubber-stamp all the planes and rodeo barns and whatever else Governor Noem wants to buy with that money.

But maybe we can find a way to meld the state’s urge to sit on coronavirus money (how many millions are we still making in interest on the federal cash Kristi has stowed in the bank?) with one ultimate hurrah for coronavirus relief… by speeding the relief we will all feel when we eradicate coronavirus.

Consider that Dr. Anthony Fauci says that we can reclaim a big chunk of normal life if 80% of us get the coronavirus vaccine:

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that that estimate is dependent on significant numbers of Americans being willing to be inoculated with one of several vaccines in various stages of development. If 75 percent to 80 percent of Americans are vaccinated in broad-based campaigns likely to start in the second quarter of next year, then the U.S. should reach the herd immunity threshold months later. If vaccination levels are significantly lower, 40 percent to 50 percent, Fauci said, it could take a very long time to reach that level of protection.

“Let’s say we get 75 percent, 80 percent of the population vaccinated,” Fauci said. “If we do that, if we do it efficiently enough over the second quarter of 2021, by the time we get to the end of the summer, i.e., the third quarter, we may actually have enough herd immunity protecting our society that as we get to the end of 2021, we can approach very much some degree of normality that is close to where we were before” [Alvin Powell, “Fauci Says Herd Immunity Possible by Fall, ‘Normality’ by End of 2021,” Harvard Gazette, 2020.12.10].

Public willingness to get the coronavirus vaccine is going up (71%, up from 63% when the vaccine was just a hope in September). Even the South Dakota Republican Party is promoting the coronavirus vaccine.

But let’s not take a chance on any complacency or anti-vaxxerism delaying our reliable herd immunity and our ability to go get wings and root beer without putting lives at risk. Let’s turn that $224 million in one-time money into good-time money, a promise to pay South Dakotans for crushing coronavirus. Put that money in a lockbox (next door to Kristi’s Fox News studio, so she can check on it daily) and tell everyone we’re not opening it until 90% (let’s go big for once!) of South Dakotans have gotten their double-shot coronavirus vaccine. Then, one month later, we distribute that cash evenly to every vaccinated South Dakotan and declare a statewide holiday, giving everyone one full week off work. We wait a month so South Dakotans will have time to buy plane tickets and line up AirBNBs and campsites and plan a nice family getaway. The cash distribution wouldn’t be huge—about $280 per vaccinated South Dakotan—but that’s nice mad money for a well-deserved and finally safe vacation.

Wouldn’t that be a relief?