COVID-19 Vaccine

CDC recommends the 2023–2024 updated COVID-19 vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Novavax, to protect against serious illness from COVID-19. Everyone aged 5 years and older ‡ should get 1 dose of an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect against serious illness from COVID-19.

After getting vaccinated, you might have some side effects, which are normal signs that your body is building protection. Common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling in the arm where you received the shot, as well as tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever, and nausea throughout the rest of the body. These side effects could affect your ability to do daily activities, but they should go away in a few days.

If you recently had COVID-19, you still need to stay up to date with your vaccines, but you may consider delaying your vaccine by 3 months.

Reinfection is less likely in the weeks to months after infection. However, certain factors could be reasons to get a vaccine sooner rather than later, such as:

*personal risk of severe disease,
*risk of disease in a loved one or close contact,
*local COVID-19 hospital admission level,
*and the most common COVID-19 variant currently causing illness.