OXON HILL, Md. — After his visit to a local Ledo Pizza in Oxon Hill, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan — along with the pizza company — announced a new incentive program for residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Ledo Pizza announced Thursday that it will be giving away a free eight-inch pizza to residents who get their first COVID-19 vaccine dose in Maryland during the months of May and June.
“Maryland businesses have risen to the occasion time and time again throughout this pandemic, and offering incentives for vaccinations is another way they are stepping up,” Hogan said in a release to WUSA9. “We encourage businesses across the state to offer incentives for both their customers and their employees to get vaccinated. The sooner we get more Marylanders vaccinated, the sooner we can bring this pandemic to an end.”
The incentive is set to begin on May 13 and will run until June 30, 2021 — or until at least 10,000 free pizzas have been handed out to residents.
“As a proud Maryland company, we stand by the efforts of the dedicated professionals and leaders who have made this vaccination effort possible,” James Beall, CEO of Ledo Pizza said. “We encourage our fellow Marylanders to go out and get the vaccine.”
On Wednesday, Hogan announced that all indoor and outdoor capacity restrictions will be lifted for the state of Maryland starting Saturday, May 15.
The move comes as parts of the country have started to scale back COVID-19 capacity restrictions because more people are getting vaccinated and the number of coronavirus cases has dropped.
“As a direct result of our incredibly fast pace of vaccinations and because of the subsequent declines of hospitalizations, positivity rate, transmission rates and case rates, today we are able to take additional action are return to normalcy," Hogan said during his weekly COVID-19 news briefing Wednesday.
RELATED: All capacity restrictions are lifted for outdoors and indoors starting Saturday in Maryland
Effective this Saturday, Hogan said that all restrictions on all outdoor entertainment, sports venues — including all ticketed events — as well as all indoor entertainment venues, conventions and other businesses all restrictions will also be lifted on both indoor and outdoor dining across the state of Maryland.
As of Wednesday, Maryland has administered more than 5.3 million COVID-19 vaccines — with 86% of all Marylanders over the age of 65 are vaccinated and 65.4% of all Marylanders over 18 are fully vaccinated.