Get Vaccinated!

Key Things to Know About COVID-19 Vaccines

• COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at preventing COVID-19 disease, especially severe illness and death.
• COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of people spreading the virus that causes COVID-19.
• You may have side effects after vaccination. These are normal and should go away in a few days.
• It typically takes 2 weeks after vaccination for the body to build protection (immunity) against the virus that causes COVID-19. You are not fully vaccinated until 2 weeks after the second dose of a 2-dose vaccine or 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine.
• You should find a COVID-19 vaccine so you can get it as soon as you can.
• After you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did before the pandemic.

What We Are Still Learning

• How well the vaccines protect people with weakened immune systems, including people who take medicines that suppress the immune system.
• How long COVID-19 vaccines protect people
• How many people have to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before the population can be considered protected (population immunity)
• How effective the vaccines are against new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19

Availability of Vaccines - What We Know

• Vaccines are widely accessible in the United States. Everyone aged 12 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible.
• Vaccines are widely accessible in the United States and are available for everyone at no cost.
• The federal government is providing COVID-19 vaccines free of charge to all people living in the United States, regardless of their immigration or health insurance status.
• COVID-19 vaccination providers cannot charge you for the vaccine.
• COVID-19 vaccination providers cannot charge you directly for any administration fees, copays, coinsurance, or the balance of the bill after appropriate reimbursement
• COVID-19 vaccination providers cannot deny vaccination to anyone who does not have health insurance coverage, is underinsured, or is out of network
• COVID-19 vaccination providers cannot charge an office visit or other fee to the recipient if the only service provided is a COVID-19 vaccination.
• COVID-19 vaccination providers cannot require additional services in order for a person to receive a COVID-19 vaccine; however, additional healthcare services can be provided at the same time and billed as appropriate
• COVID-19 vaccination providers can seek appropriate reimbursement from the recipient’s plan or program (for example, private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid) for a vaccine administration fee.
• Seek reimbursement for uninsured vaccine recipients from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s COVID-19 Uninsured Program.

Effectiveness - What we know

COVID-19 vaccines are effective at keeping you from getting COVID-19, especially severe illness and death. COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of people spreading the virus that causes COVID-19. If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did before the pandemic.

Studies show that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at keeping you from getting COVID-19. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine will also help keep you from getting seriously ill even if you do get COVID-19.

COVID-19 vaccines teach our immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19. It typically takes 2 weeks after vaccination for the body to build protection (immunity) against the virus that causes COVID-19. That means it is possible a person could still get COVID-19 before or just after vaccination and then get sick because the vaccine did not have enough time to build protection. People are considered fully vaccinated 2 weeks after their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, or 2 weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine.

What we are still learning

We are still learning how well COVID-19 vaccines protect people with weakened immune systems, including people who take medicines that suppress the immune system. We’re also still learning how long COVID-19 vaccines protect people.

If you have a medical condition or are taking medicines that weaken your immune system, you should talk to your healthcare provider. You may need to keep taking all precautions to prevent COVID-19 disease.

Safety - What we know

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Vaccines cannot give you COVID-19. You may have side effects after vaccination. These are normal and should go away in a few days.

Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines, and these vaccines have undergone the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. This monitoring includes using both established and new safety monitoring systems to make sure that COVID-19 vaccines are safe. COVID-19 vaccines cannot give you COVID-19.

CDC has developed a new tool, v-safe, to help us quickly find any safety issues with COVID-19 vaccines. V-safe is a smartphone-based, after-vaccination health checker for people who receive COVID-19 vaccines.

You may have side effects after vaccination, but these are normal

After COVID-19 vaccination, you may have some side effects. These are normal signs that your body is building protection. The side effects from COVID-19 vaccination, such as tiredness, headache, or chills, may affect your ability to do daily activities, but they should go away in a few days.

Population Immunity - What we know

Population immunity means that enough people in a community are protected from getting a disease because they’ve already had the disease or because they’ve been vaccinated.

Population immunity makes it hard for a disease to spread from person to person. It even protects those who cannot be vaccinated, like newborns or people who are allergic to a vaccine. The percentage of people who need to have protection to achieve population immunity varies by disease.

What we are still learning

We are still learning how many people have to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before the population can be considered protected.

As we know more, CDC will continue to update our recommendations for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

New Variants - What we are still learning

We are still learning how effective the vaccines are against new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19.

New variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 are spreading in the United States. Current information suggests that COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the United States offer protection against most variants. However, some variants might cause illness in some people after they are fully vaccinated if the variants are circulating in the community.