More than 360,000 people registered for Quebec’s vaccination lottery in first 24 hours

More than 360,000 people in the province registered for the Loto-Québec COVID-19 vaccination lottery in its first 24 hours, the government says.

Registration opened at 8 a.m. Sunday and by 8 a.m. Monday, a government spokesperson told Global News that 297,602 people had signed up Sunday and 65,548 did so early Monday morning, for a total of 363,150.

Officials say the Loto-Québec website is seeing 20 times its usual traffic.

This comes after many faced technical difficulties trying to sign up on Sunday. The government said work to get the site up and running smoothly was underway so it could handle the massive influx of traffic.

The Quebec government has said the vaccination lottery is an attempt to get 75 per cent of its eligible population fully immunized against COVID-19 by the end of August.

Any Quebecer who received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine can register in Loto-Québec draws, regardless of when they were vaccinated.

The draws will take place each Friday in August and people will be eligible to win up to a $150,000 prize or a $10,000 scholarship by registering online.

Quebec’s public health institute said that as of Thursday, 83 per cent of Quebecers over the age of 12 had received at least one dose and 59.8 per cent were fully vaccinated.

Other provinces, such as Ontario and Manitoba, have already used lotteries to entice residents to get the shot.

–With files from The Canadian Press

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