Key Things to Know About COVID-19 Vaccines
What You Need to Know
- Everyone ages 5 and older can get vaccinated against COVID-19. Learn how to find a COVID-19 vaccine.
- COVID-19 vaccines are effective at helping protect against severe disease and death from the virus that causes COVID-19, including known variants currently circulating (e.g., Delta variant).
- The benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks, which are rare.
- As with other routine vaccines, side effects may occur after vaccination. These are normal and should go away within a few days.
- People who are fully vaccinated can resume many activities they did before the pandemic. However, people should wear a mask indoors in public if they are in an area of substantial or high transmission.
- People who are moderately to severely immunocompromised are recommended to get an additional primary dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (i.e., Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna).
- Certain groups of people are recommended to get a COVID-19 booster shot.
- Unlike many medications, COVID-19 vaccine dosage does not vary by patient weight but by age on the day of vaccination.
- People can get a COVID-19 vaccine and other vaccines, including flu vaccine, at the same time.