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Benefits of Getting Vaccinated

What to know

There are many benefits of getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Young woman showing off her recent COVID vaccine and Band-Aid on tattooed upper arm.

COVID-19 vaccines protect your health

COVID 19-vaccines are effective at protecting people from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized, and dying. Vaccination remains the safest strategy for avoiding hospitalizations, long-term health outcomes, and death.

  • A safer way to build protection: Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is a safer, more reliable way to build protection than getting sick with COVID-19.
  • Offers added protection: COVID-19 vaccines can offer added protection to people who had COVID-19, including protection against being hospitalized from a new infection.

How to be best protected: As with vaccines for other diseases, people are best protected when they stay up to date.

What you can do now to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, and death

Everyone ages 6 months and older should get a 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine. CDC recommends everyone ages 5 years and older get 1 updated 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine. Children ages 6 months–4 years may need more than 1 dose of updated COVID-19 to stay up to date.

Severe illness

COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective in preventing the most severe outcomes from a COVID-19 infection.

Myocarditis is a condition where the heart becomes inflamed in response to an infection or some other trigger. Myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination is rare. This study shows that patients with COVID-19 had nearly 16 times the risk for myocarditis compared with patients who did not have COVID-19.

Hospitalization

COVID-19 vaccines can help prevent you from becoming hospitalized if you do get infected with COVID-19.

Death

COVID-19 vaccines can help prevent you from dying if you do get infected with COVID-19.

COVID-19 vaccination is a safer, more reliable way to build protection

Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine Is Safer and More Reliable‎

Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is a safer, more reliable way to build protection than getting sick with COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccination helps protect people by creating an immune response without the potentially severe illness or post-COVID conditions that can be associated with COVID-19 infection.

Getting Sick

  • Getting sick with COVID-19 can cause severe illness or death, even in children, but it is not possible to determine who will experience mild or severe illness from COVID-19 infection.
  • People may have long-term health issues after having COVID-19. Even people who do not have symptoms when they are first infected with COVID-19 can experience long-term health problems, also known as long COVID or post-COVID conditions.
  • Complications can appear after mild or severe COVID-19, or after multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

Protection from COVID-19

While people can get some protection from having COVID-19, the level and length of that protection varies, especially as COVID-19 variants continue to emerge.

  • Immunity (protection) from infection can vary depending on how mild or severe someone’s illness was and their age.
  • Immunity from infection decreases over time.

Importantly, there is no antibody test available that can reliably determine if a person is protected from further infection.

After Vaccination‎

After vaccination, continue to follow all current respiratory virus prevention measures recommended by CDC. Learn more about protecting your family from COVID-19.
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Content Source:
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division