The short answer is no. It’s common for people to have 1-2 days of body aches, chills and/or a mild fever immediately after getting their second shot. The vast majority of people then go back to living normally.

If you are unvaccinated, you are more likely to become hospitalized and experience serious health issues from COVID-19 compared to people who get the vaccine.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the research for the basis of mRNA vaccines had already been completed. The FDA followed all the safeguards and regulations it always does for vaccine approval.

This helped to get COVID-19 vaccines ready for approval and distribution much more quickly than we typically see.

The Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines are approved under emergency use authorization for the prevention of COVID-19 disease. Both Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines can be administered to individuals 6 months and older; Novavax is authorized for individuals 12 years and older.

The previous monovalent versions of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were fully approved for use; the bivalent versions need to go through the full FDA approval process. This process includes additional evaluation of scientific data, safety analyses and further inspection of manufacturing processes.

The Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine is no longer authorized for use in the U.S. as of June 1, 2023. 

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been fully approved by the FDA for individuals over the age of 12 for the prevention of COVID-19 disease. It has also been given emergency use authorization by the FDA for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in children over the age of 6 months. In order to get approved for use in children, the clinical trials had the same safeguards and oversight as the adult approval process.

Researchers have found no increased risk of infertility for women who got the COVID-19 vaccine compared to those who did not.

Data from hundreds of thousands of pregnant women who received the COVID-19 vaccine show they are not at any more risk than women who are unvaccinated.

Some research even shows pregnant mothers pass their antibodies to their baby, helping to protect them against the virus.

If you have a health condition and are unsure how the COVID-19 vaccine might affect you, ask your doctor or primary care provider.

If you need to find a doctor to talk with, you can find one using our Physician Directory.

If you tested positive for COVID-19 and recovered from the illness, your immune system does have antibodies that protect against COVID-19. Scientists have observed that natural immunity and vaccine-based immunity decline at roughly the same rate.

However, research shows people who have the best protection against becoming reinfected and getting seriously ill from COVID are those who have had COVID-19 and are vaccinated against the virus.

While CDC data suggests most people died from COVID-19 are ages 65 and older, there are younger individuals who have no history of health problems and still end up with severe cases of COVID-19 that result in lingering symptoms afterward - often called long COVID. It is hard to predict why some people get mild cases while others are more severe.

The updated COVID-19 vaccines are 62 percent effective in protecting against hospitalization due to a COVID-19 infection for people without an immunocompromising condition, according to a CDC analysis. While research is ongoing about natural vs. vaccine-acquired immunity, having multiple layers of protection against COVID is better than none at all.