Why Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?

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Getting the COVID-19 vaccine protects you from COVID-19 and helps end the pandemic. The vaccine provides an instruction manual for your immune system to fight the virus that causes COVID-19. The vaccine may also allow individuals to return to work and school settings more easily, with fewer restrictions. The vaccine protects against new, more transmissible variants, including the Delta variant.   

Fully vaccinated workers may have fewer workplace testing requirements.   

Fully vaccinated people can do more things, safely.

• Fully vaccinated people can now safely remove their masks in some situations, may not have to quarantine when exposed to someone with COIVD-19, and can travel more easily and safely. For detailed guidance on what fully vaccinated people can do, visit the CDC’s Interim Guidance for Fully Vaccinated People  and the State of California’s Guidance for the Use of Face Coverings.

Getting the vaccine protects you from serious illness.

• COVID-19 can have serious, life-threatening complications, and there is no way to anticipate how severely it may affect you and the people around you. 

• The vaccine is highly effective at preventing serious infection, hospitalization, or death from COVID-19. 

• Experts believe that getting the vaccine may also keep you from getting seriously ill even if you do get COVID-19. 

It may protect the people around you.

• If you get sick, you could spread the disease to your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. 

• Experts believe getting vaccinated yourself may protect people around you, particularly people at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19. 

The vaccine offers immunity without the dangers of becoming infected.

• The risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 far outweighs any possible benefits of immunity you may gain from getting sick. 

• While getting COVID-19 may offer you a degree of natural protection for a time after you recover, experts don’t know for sure how long this protection lasts, and you may still be vulnerable to contracting the virus again, especially as different variants become more prevalent. 

The vaccine helps our community move toward reopening.

The vaccine is a critical tool for helping stop the pandemic so our community can reopen businesses, schools, and other activities we enjoyed before the pandemic began. Stopping a pandemic requires using all the tools we have available. 

Learn more about the vaccine