Missouri allocated $11M for vaccine gift cards. Most health departments said no thanks

This investigative story was a collaboration between the Missouri Independent and the Documenting COVID-19 project at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and MuckRock. The story described how local public health departments either opted out of, or had seen limited community interest in, a state initiative to distribute gift cards as incentives for getting vaccinated.

The two lead reporters were Betsy Ladyzhets (Documenting COVID-19) and Tessa Weinberg (Missouri Independent). In addition to reporting and writing, Betsy produced two data visualizations to accompany the story.

Read the full story at the Missouri Independent and/or at MuckRock, published December 2, 2021.