Robert Picardo’s autograph offer saw “sizeable” bump in vaccinations

Robert Picardo’s autograph offer worked.

Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Picardo saw vaccination numbers sluggishly drop off and wanted to help. The man who played the Doctor on Voyager, a holographic program that learned to be more human, is every bit as devoted to the health and safety as others as his on-screen character, even though he’s merely an actor in real life.

To help get people vaccinated against Covid-19, Picardo offered up a free autograph to anyone who got their first shot between July 27, and Aug 5, 2021. As long as they were able to prove it, of course. He only required people to get the first dose, because a ten-day turnaround isn’t enough time to get both, but even still, if people got one, they’re far more likely to get the second.

It was a bold move, of course, with so many things being politized unnecessarily, the offer easily could’ve blown up in his face and caused even more people to double down against it. Why? Who knows, people are weird, and are constantly going against their own best interests. Picardo’s offer could’ve been met with a sizeable resistance.

Funny thing, however. It wasn’t.

Robert Picardo’s offer worked, now it’s time to pay up

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Enter Star Trek fan, Jay Stobie. Stobie and Picardo worked together to help coordinate the entire whole thing. A task that was clearly needed, after the offer was retweeted over 3,000 times. The tweet and offer ended up working. Stobie tweeted out;

"Because of [Robert Picardo’s] generosity, a sizeable number of people chose to get vaccinated in the past week. Humbled to have helped in a very small way."

No numbers are being reported but while it may not be as much as some think it should be, even if it’s only a few hundred people, it’s a largely successful effort on behalf of just one man. With the Delta variant getting more steam and attention, making sure people are properly protected against Covid-19 is imperative.

Even if you’re not a fan of Picardo or the way he went about things, you have to admire a man whose only desire is to help protect people.