COVID Vaccines

Studies show that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at keeping you from getting COVID-19. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine will also help keep you from getting seriously ill even if you do get COVID-19.

No. COVID-19 vaccines do not change or interact with your DNA in any way. COVID-19 vaccines deliver instructions (genetic material) to our cells to start building protection against the virus that causes COVID-19. However, the material never enters the nucleus of the cell, which is where our DNA is kept.

Yes. If you are trying to become pregnant now or want to get pregnant in the future, you may get a COVID-19 vaccine when one is available to you. There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 vaccination causes any problems with pregnancy, including the development of the placenta. In addition, there is no evidence that fertility problems are a side effect of any vaccine, including COVID19 vaccines.

The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna were created with a method that has been in development for years, so the companies could start the vaccine development process early in the pandemic. The vaccine developers didn’t skip any testing steps, but conducted some of the steps on an overlapping schedule to gather data faster. Vaccine projects had plenty of resources, as governments invested in research and/or paid for vaccines in advance. Because COVID-19 is so contagious and widespread, it did not take long to see if the vaccine worked for the study volunteers who were vaccinated. Companies began making vaccines early in the process — even before FDA authorization — so some supplies were ready when authorization occurred.