The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance on Thursday: Vaccinated people can go without face masks in nearly every situation, marking a huge step in returning to pre-pandemic ways.
But some states have more vaccinated residents than others, and they're not quite ready to lift mask mandates until vaccination rates are higher. A spokeswoman for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, for example, said they would be waiting for health state officials to review lifting the indoor mask mandate, and President Joe Biden said after the CDC's announcement that some Americans might not be ready to walk around freely without a mask.
"Please treat them with kindness and respect," he said. "We've had too much conflict, too much bitterness, too much anger, too much politicization of this issue about wearing masks. Let's put it to rest."
While states can't force their residents to get vaccinated, they can offer incentives that might sway vaccine-reluctant residents to get shots in their arms, and some are even using stimulus funds from Biden's American Rescue Plan to do so. For example, Ohio is using stimulus money to offer $1 million to five vaccinated residents at random, and West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is working on using stimulus money to create $100 savings bonds for vaccinated young people.
Here are seven states using unconventional incentives to get their residents vaccinated.