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.   
  • Beginning  August 9, 2021, workers within healthcare settings, federal, or state offices who are not fully vaccinated must strictly adhere to current CDPH Masking Guidance as well provide a negative PCR or antigen test at least once a week depending on the setting. Read the full guidance here.  
  • By September 30, 2021 all workers who provide health related services or work in healthcare facilities must have their first dose of a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine or their second dose of a two-dose vaccine. Read the full guidance here.  
  • Beginning October 15, 2021, workers (paid and unpaid) within public and private schools serving students in transitional kindergarten through grade 12 (excluding home schools) who are not fully vaccinated must provide a negative PCR or antigen test at least once a week depending on the setting. Read the full guidance here.  
Fully vaccinated people can do more things, safely.
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. 
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. 

The vaccine allows you to visit with vulnerable loved ones safely.   
  • Fully vaccinated individuals may visit loved ones safely in General Acute Care Hospitals, Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs), and Intermediate Care Facilities (ICFs). If unvaccinated, individuals must present a documentation of a negative SARS-CoV-2 test every visit. Read the full guidance here.  

Learn more about the vaccine