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COVID-19 FAQ

COVID-19 Vaccines, Illness, and Global Pandemic

The public health emergency has ended, but the COVID-19 virus continues to circulate. Vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself and your family from the most dangerous effects of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.

It’s normal to have questions about COVID-19 vaccines. Here, you’ll find answers to some of the most commonly asked COVID questions.

This page has been verified for accuracy by a member of VYF’s Committee of Scientific and Medical Advisors, last updated February 2024.

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Getting A Covid VaccineSide EffectsSafetyEffectivenessCovid-19 and ChildrenPregnancy and FertilityCovid-19 Myths
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Understanding COVID Vaccine Safety

COVID vaccines, including mRNA vaccines, have been extensively tested and proven to be safe and effective for everyone 6 months and older.

Getting A COVID Vaccine

The COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for the 2023–2024 season are:

Get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible to protect yourself and your loved ones from serious COVID-19 illness. Most of the people who have been hospitalized or have died due to COVID-19 were unvaccinated.

See CDC’s Stay Up to Date with COVID-19 Vaccines web page for more.

There are many ways to find a COVID-19 vaccine appointment, including:

  • Vaccine.gov allows you to search for a COVID-19 vaccine (and a flu vaccine) in your area
  • Call your healthcare provider’s office
  • Your local pharmacy’s website may allow you to book a COVID-19 vaccine appointment
  • Check Your state or local health departmentwebsite for more information on how to get vaccinated
  • Search for a free COVID-19 vaccine for under or uninsured individuals through the Bridge Access Program

There are many options for booking a COVID-19 appointment. Locate appointments by searching the vaccines.gov website, calling a doctor, calling the pharmacy, checking a local pharmacy website, or by checking the state department website. There are resources for individuals who are homebound, as well.

What should I expect when I get my COVID-19 vaccine?

At the appointment you will fill out any paperwork, get the vaccine, be given a fact sheet for your vaccine, and pay for the vaccine. If you note that you might have an allergy to the vaccine or ingredients in the vaccine, you may be asked to wait 15 minutes to be sure you don’t have an immediate reaction. Healthcare professionals are trained in how to handle reactions to vaccines and will be able to help you should you need it.

Paying for COVID-19 vaccines:

  • Private insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare will often cover updated COVID-19 vaccines at no cost
  • CDC’s Bridge Access Program can cover costs for adults who do not have health insurance and for those who are underinsured. To find a participating location, check gov and be sure to check the “Bridge Access Program” option in your search.
  • CDC’s Vaccines for Children(VFC) program provides vaccines at no cost to eligible children through healthcare providers enrolled in the program

Vaccination cards are no longer given or updated at COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Find out more about how to locate vaccination records at CDC’s website, The Vaccination Records: Finding, Interpreting, and Recording.

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As of Fall 2023, the COVID-19 vaccines are no longer fully paid for by the federal government. However, there are many ways to get a COVID-19 vaccine at no cost.

Paying for COVID-19 vaccines:

  • Private insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare will often cover updated COVID-19 vaccines at no cost
  • CDC’s Bridge Access Program can cover costs for adults who do not have health insurance and for those who are underinsured. To find a participating location, check gov and be sure to check the “Bridge Access Program” option in your search.
  • CDC’s Vaccines for Children (VFC) program provides vaccines at no cost to eligible children through healthcare providers enrolled in the program

Vaccination cards are no longer given or updated at COVID-19 vaccine appointments but a record of COVID-19 vaccination is kept in the state’s Immunization Information System (IIS). This system helps providers, public health officials, and the public find vaccine records by consolidating the information into one source. The records can be used to help guide healthcare professionals on which vaccines a patient needs, improve vaccination rates, and help limit vaccine-preventable diseases.

There are many ways to locate adult vaccine records and to also locate child vaccine records. For more, see CDC’s The Vaccination Records: Finding, Interpreting, and Recording web page.

Side Effects

Side effects from getting a COVID-19 vaccine vary from person to person. Some of the more mild and common side effects include:

  • Pain, redness or swelling on your arm where you got the shot
  • Tiredness
  • Headache
  • Muscle pain
  • Joint pain
  • Chills
  • Fever
  • Nausea
  • Swollen lymph nodes on the side you got vaccinated

These possible side effects usually occur within one to 3-days of getting the vaccine and should only last a few days. Not everyone who gets vaccinated will have side effects. Some people get the vaccine, feel fine, and can continue to go about their normal activities. Feeling fine doesn’t mean the body is not responding to the vaccine and building protection against the virus.

Side effects can be relieved with over-the-counter pain medication like acetaminophen or ibuprofen, as well as rest, applying a cool washcloth to the injection site, and drinking lots of fluids.

Serious side effects to the COVID-19 vaccine are very rare. Around five cases out of a million doses of vaccine administered will have a severe allergic reaction. Learn more about serious side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine on CDC’s Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination web page.

Serious side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine are much rarer than getting sick with the COVID-19 virus. Vaccine safety monitoring has shown that if side effects are going to happen, they generally happen within 6-weeks of receiving a vaccine. That’s because the antigen, the part of the vaccine that causes an immune response, is destroyed by the body’s immune system by 6-weeks after getting the vaccine. The rest of the vaccine ingredients are filtered out by the body within a few days.

Research shows that serious side effects will be seen within the first 6-weeks after being vaccinated. Millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered and there have been only a few rare severe side effects from the vaccine that all occur shortly after vaccination. Learn more about serious side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine on CDC’s Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination web page.

Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines, with the first doses administered in 2019 in clinical trials. During the trials, the FDA monitors each vaccine for at least 8-weeks after the dose is given to examine any possible side effects. Experts at the FDA, CDC, and their advisory committees continue to conduct careful and extensive safety monitoring of all COVID-19 vaccines. There have been very few cases of serious vaccine side effects. These serious side effects include:

The benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine outweigh the risks of getting sick with the virus. Serious illness, hospitalization, death, and long-COVID are risks with COVID-19 illness that can be prevented through vaccination.

There have been rare reports of myocarditis and pericarditis after COVID-19 vaccination. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle and pericarditis is an inflammation of the outer lining of the heart. Both conditions occur when the body’s immune system triggers an inflammatory response.

Symptoms of these heart conditions are chest pain, shortness of breath, and feelings of having a rapid, fluttering, or pounding heartbeat. Most patients respond to medication and feel better with rest.

Most of these reported cases have happened in males between 16– 29-years old after getting their second dose of a mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. According to a January 2022 study, out of 192,405,448 people who received mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, there were 1,626 reports of myocarditis. That’s a 0.000845% chance of getting the condition.

While these heart issues might sound scary, vaccine related myocarditis and pericarditis are often mild and treatable. Of those who developed the heart conditions after getting vaccinated, most have made a full recovery. Myocarditis and pericarditis caused by the virus can be much more severe and dangerous. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is the best protection to minimize the risk of complications caused by COVID-19 infection.

CDC is conducting surveys of patients who have had myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination. If you believe you have had myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination, see CDC’s Investigating Long-Term Effects of Myocarditis web page to participate.

The Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine is no longer available in the United States due to reports of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) with the vaccine.

TTS is a rare side effect of the vaccine that causes blood clots to form in blood vessels in any part of the body. Some can be life-threatening if they stop blood and oxygen from moving through the vessels. This condition also causes a low platelet count. Platelets are blood cells that stop bleeding, which means that people with low platelets can bleed more easily and for a longer period of time. TTS was rarely observed in patients who got the Janssen vaccine, at approximately four cases per one million doses administered.

GBS occurs when a person’s immune system harms the body’s nerves. This can lead to muscle weakness and paralysis. If GBS occurs after vaccination it typically happens within days or weeks after getting the vaccine.

Statistics show that there were 60 cases of TTS out of 18 million people who got the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine. There have been 100 cases of GBS among 12.8 million people who have received the J&J COVID-19 vaccine.

The Janssen vaccine is no longer offered. If you have received this vaccine when it was available, you do not need to worry about TTS or GBS.

Safety

COVID-19 vaccines are under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history. Side effects that can come after getting a COVID-19 vaccine vary from person to person but are typically mild and are gone within a few days. Many people do not experience any side effects from the vaccine and are able to go about their daily activities immediately.

COVID-19 vaccine monitoring continues to be a priority and if new safety issues arise, scientists can quickly study them and determine if there are safety concerns with the vaccines.

See more on COVID-19 safety monitoring systems in the U.S.

Almost all of the ingredients found in COVID-19 vaccines are also found in foods, such as fats, sugar, and salts. There are no preservatives (like thimerosal), antibiotics, medicines or therapeutics, animal materials, food proteins, metals, or latex in the vaccines.

Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines have mRNA that teach the body’s cells how to make a protein that triggers the immune system to make a response. The response helps the body create immunity to the virus. None of the ingredients found in COVID-19 vaccines can affect or interact with or affect DNA, as the mRNA cannot get into the nucleus of the cell where the DNA is found.

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is an ingredient found in mRNA vaccines. This is a lipid that surrounds and protects mRNA as it’s transported to the cell. PEG has many uses, most often used to treat constipation. PEG is also used in a variety of products including skin cream, toothpaste, lubricating eye drops, and as an anti-foaming agent in food. Sometimes polyethylene glycol is confused with ethylene glycol, which is a very different compound and not found in vaccines. While PEG is safe to introduce into the body, ethylene glycol is not. Ethylene glycol is very toxic and is best known for its use in antifreeze. There is no antifreeze in vaccines.

People with an allergy to PEG should speak to a healthcare provider before getting an mRNA vaccine.

The Novavax protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine has pieces of  viral protein, and an ingredient called an adjuvant. The adjuvant makes the vaccine work better by helping the body create a stronger immune response.

Johnson & Johnson’s (Janssen) viral vector COVID-19 vaccine contains a modified version of a different virus (a vector virus). This vaccine is no longer used in the U.S.

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In the past, vaccines could take many years before becoming publicly available. Many people don’t realize that there were decades of research that came before the development of COVID-19 vaccines—even for mRNA vaccines.

Due to the urgency of a vaccine to control the COVID-19 pandemic, more research, funding, resources, and testing were put into vaccine development than ever before. COVID-19 vaccine development became top priority for many countries, companies, health organizations, and research groups.

Development was accelerated via Operation Warp Speed   but not rushed. Bringing these vaccines into the arms of millions of people involved many steps:

  • Vaccine development in laboratories – development involves many years of research, and in the case of COVID-19 vaccines, knowledge was gained through past research on previous coronavirus vaccines, as well as research in mRNA technology
  • Clinical trials – vaccines go through three phases of clinical trials to be sure they are safe and effective. These trials involved tens of thousands of volunteers. The trials compare outcomes between people who were vaccinated and people who were not. Trials show that the vaccines are safe and effective in people.
  • S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorization/approval – the FDA then looks at the research from the clinical trials to see if the vaccines are safe and effective. Initially, the vaccines were granted emergency use authorization (EUA), which allowed the vaccines to be quickly distributed to the public during the pandemic. The FDA went on to grant full approval for two COVID-19 vaccines.
  • Development and approval of vaccine recommendations through the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and CDC – once the FDA authorizes or approves the vaccines, the CDC’s ACIP reviews all data about the vaccine to determine recommendations for the use of the vaccine for the public.
  • Safety monitoring – the COVID-19 vaccines have been under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history. There are many monitoring systems in place to track any safety issues that need further research.

 

If any serious safety issues are detected, immediate action will be taken to find out if the issue is related to the COVID-19 vaccine and to determine the best course of action.

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COVID-19 vaccine recommendations have changed since they were first put on the market in late 2020. It’s important to stay up to date on the current recommendations each season as the updated COVID-19 vaccines come out. Check CDC’s Stay Up to Date with COVID-19 Vaccine web page for the most current information.

The current 2023–2024 updated COVID-19 vaccines are Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, Moderna mRNA vaccine, and Novavax subunit vaccine.

The 2023–2024 season recommendations are:

Effectiveness

All COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized or approved by FDA and recommended by the CDC for use in the United States have been shown to help protect people who are vaccinated from getting severely ill, being hospitalized, and dying from COVID-19. All the vaccines currently recommended in the U.S. have been found to be safe and effective.

The COVID-19 vaccines that have been approved for the 2023–2024 season are Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (mRNA), Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine (mRNA), and Novavax protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine.

People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised may need more than one dose to be fully protected from the virus that causes COVID-19 illness.

Getting vaccinated offers the best chance of limiting severe illness and death due to COVD-19. Public health officials and medical professionals recommend all people over the age of 6-months get vaccinated.

The updated  COVID-19 vaccines more closely target the currently circulating virus that causes COVID-19 illness. The vaccines have been approved and authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after evaluating all the available data on which strains are circulating, infecting people, and causing severe illness.

The updated vaccines are manufactured using a similar process as the previous COVID-19 vaccines and have been found to be safe and effective. See CDC’s Stay Up to Date with COVID-19 Vaccines webpage for the most current recommendations and check back for any changes in recommendations. The vaccines are monitored for safety concerns and will be updated annually.

COVID-19 vaccines are effective for all people, however, there are different recommendations for people who are moderately or severely immunocompromised. Recommendations may change as new COVID-19 vaccines come out, so check CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccines for People Who Are Moderately or Severely Immunocompromised web page for the most current recommendations.

Current recommendations for the 2023–2024 season are that everyone age 6-months and older who are moderately or severely immunocompromised get two to three doses of the same brand of updated COVID-19 vaccine. They can get additional doses if needed. There is no brand of vaccine that is preferred over another for immunocompromised people.

CDC recommends that everyone stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines, especially people with weakened immune systems.

COVID-19 and Children

Yes, children should get a COVID-19 vaccine. For the 2023–2024 season, CDC recommends that children ages 6-months–4-years get multiple doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including at least one dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccines, and everyone ages 5-years and older get one dose of updated COVID-19 vaccine. Recommendations can change, so check with CDC’s Stay Up to Date with Vaccines web page for the most current recommendations.

There are benefits to vaccinating children against COVID-19, including reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection, health complications, hospitalization, and death. While COVID-19 is less likely to cause severe illness in children than in adults, many children have gotten very sick and have had to be hospitalized after getting infected. Children are at risk of long-term health conditions due to COVID-19 infection (long-COVID), including the very serious Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a condition where different body parts become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs.

Vaccination also reduces the spread of COVID-19 to others, including classmates, siblings, playmates, and all people children come into contact with. Outbreaks in schools and care centers have led to severe cases and closures. Limiting spread also helps other children with certain health conditions who are unable to be vaccinated from getting sick.

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COVID-19 is less likely to cause severe illness in children than in adults, however, that doesn’t mean that children can’t get very sick. Therefore, CDC recommends that all children over the age of 6-months get vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine. View current CDC recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination.

There are many reasons to get children vaccinated:

  • Like most respiratory viruses, COVID-19 is easily spread in places where children gather, such as schools, daycares, sports, clubs, and other activities that allow higher rates of disease spread. Vaccines help protect all people from catching and spreading COVID-19.
  • Vaccination helps keep kids from getting severely sick, hospitalized, or dying from the virus.
  • Children are at risk of long-term health conditions (long covid) due to COVID-19 illness. There are many symptoms of long covid, including the very serious condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). MIS-C is a condition associated with the virus that causes COVID-19 that causes different parts of the body to become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, eyes, skin, or gastrointestinal tract. This is a serious, potentially deadly, syndrome in children that requires medical care.

Children over the age of 6-months are recommended to get a COVID-19 vaccine to protect them against COVID-19 illness to prevent spreading the disease to others and getting sick from the disease.

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Yes, the CDC recommendation is that the COVID-19 vaccine can be given with other vaccines on the same day or within 14-days of each other. This includes routine vaccines as well as the flu vaccine.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) supports the administration of COVID-19 vaccines with routine and seasonal vaccines. When administering more than one vaccine at the same time, AAP recommends vaccines be given at different injection sites at least one inch apart or in different limbs.

Children are vulnerable to serious long-term side effects from getting sick with COVID-19 (long COVID). Some of the long term effects of having COVID-19 in children are loss of smell (causing weight loss from food tasting bad), brain fog, shortness of breath, headaches, fatigue, chest pain, rapid heartbeat, inability to exercise, muscle or nerve pain, sleep problems, anxiety, depression, unexplained fevers, and more.

Children are also susceptible to a very serious condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). MIS-C is a condition associated with the virus that causes COVID-19 that causes different parts of the body to become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, eyes, skin, or gastrointestinal tract. This is a serious, potentially deadly, syndrome in children that requires medical care.

To prevent these long-term, potentially life-long post covid issues, children 6-months and older should be vaccinated according to the most current CDC recommendations.

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No. There is no link between the COVID-19 vaccine and hepatitis in children. In 2021, CDC and WHO investigated the cause of a rise in cases of hepatitis in young children. Most of the children who had been diagnosed with hepatitis were under five and were not eligible to receive the vaccine at the time they developed hepatitis. While early information points to a link between infection with adenovirus type 41, which is a common virus that usually causes cold and flu-like symptoms in children, the cause has still not been determined.

Pregnancy and Fertility

Yes. The CDC and professional medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)  and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, recommend COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy and while breastfeeding.

In the 2023–2024 season, the recommendation is that everyone ages 6-months and older should get an updated COVID-19 vaccine. This includes individuals who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant, or those who might become pregnant in the future. Infants ages 6-months and older are recommended to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine even if born to people who were vaccinated or had COVID-19 before or during pregnancy.

Pregnant and recently pregnant people are more likely to get very sick from COVID-19 than those who are not pregnant and if an individual gets COVID-19 while pregnant, they are at an increased risk of complications that can affect the pregnancy and baby. Getting an updated COVID-19 vaccine can protect both the pregnant person and the baby from serious illness. All pregnant people should stay up to date with their COVID-19 vaccine.

The vaccine does not cause COVID-19 illness in people who are pregnant or their developing child. Safety data shows that there is not an increased risk for complications like miscarriage, preterm delivery, or birth defects in the baby, in fact, getting vaccinated may prevent these complications by not getting sick with COVID-19.

Monitoring has shown that getting vaccinated during pregnancy is safe, effective, and beneficial to both the pregnant person and to the baby. The benefits of getting vaccinated heavily outweigh the risks of getting sick with COVID-19.  Safety monitoring of vaccination in pregnant people is ongoing. See information on safety monitoring systems.

Getting a COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy is both safe and effective. The COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness in pregnant people and their babies.

CDC and professional medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), recommend COVID-19 vaccination at any point in pregnancy.

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There’s no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine causes fertility problems in either men or women. Studies show that there is no difference in getting pregnant between women who have antibodies from the COVID-19 vaccine or a recent COVID-19 infection and those who have no antibodies.

CDC, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) have all confirmed the COVID-19 vaccines do not affect fertility.

There is also no evidence that any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause male fertility problems. According to the CDC, there was a recent study of 45 healthy men who got an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, which looked at their sperm characteristics (quantity and movement) before and after vaccination. The researchers found no significant changes in these sperm characteristics after vaccination. Fever from COVID-19 illness has been associated with short-term decreases in sperm production in healthy men. Although fever is a side effect from vaccination, there is no evidence that fever after COVID-19 vaccination affects sperm production.

Safety monitoring systems allow for ongoing monitoring for fertility issues due to the COVID-19 vaccine. See information on safety monitoring systems.

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COVID-19 Myths

No, COVID-19 vaccines do not contain microchips. Vaccines do not and cannot track people or send information to a database. This false claim started after Bill Gates from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made comments about using a digital certificate of vaccine records. The technology does not include a microchip and has not been implemented.

COVID-19 vaccines are free from microelectronics and metals. They also do not contain ingredients that produce an electromagnetic field at the injection site.

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No, there is no connection between COVID-19 vaccines or the virus that causes COVID-19 and 5G networks. This is a conspiracy theory that has been promoted widely on social media. The notion that particles in vaccines are “programmable” and can interact with 5G networks is incorrect. Additionally, viruses cannot travel on radio waves or through mobile networks.

Including a chip with 5G capability into a vaccine is not possible. A chip with 5G functionality is a little smaller than a penny and would not be able to fit through a vaccine needle to go into the body. The smallest radio-frequency chip could fit through a vaccine needle, however, could only function when attached to a coil antenna, which would mean the needle would need to be at least 13 times larger.

Ramsay-Hunt syndrome (RHS) occurs when the shingles virus (the same virus that causes chickenpox) affects the facial nerve near one of the ears and causes potential facial paralysis/loss of hearing in that ear. This often comes along with the painful shingles rash. With treatment, the risk of permanent facial muscle weakness and deafness can be reduced.

In 2022, singer Justin Bieber announced on social media he had RHS. After doing so, rumor quickly spread that his syndrome was triggered by the COVID-19 vaccine. From then, people started spreading false information that RHS could be a serious side effect of the vaccine.

So far, research has not shown a connection between the COVID-19 vaccine and RHS. Due to the very low number of reports on this safety issue, research is ongoing.

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