Communicating With Vaccine-Eligible Children and Parents

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General points on eligible children getting COVID-19 vaccines

  • A vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your family, and your community from COVID-19 – all available COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against severe illness, hospitalization, and death due to COVID-19.
  • Getting vaccinated makes gathering safer – People who stay up to date with their COVID vaccines can gather with family and friends and attend school, concerts, sporting events, and travel, knowing they are well-protected from severe illness from COVID.
  • All the COVID-19 vaccines recommended for use in the United States are safe – millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines, and these vaccines will continue to undergo extensive safety monitoring. CDC recommends getting the vaccines as soon as possible.
  • A vaccine is the best way to protect your child from COVID-19 – all available COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against severe illness, hospitalization, and death due to COVID-19.
  • Talk to your pediatrician or family medicine provider if you have questions – it’s perfectly normal to have questions about your child’s care. Talk with your child’s clinician to address specific questions.

General points on the COVID-19 vaccines

  • All available COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death due to COVID-19.
  • COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects in some people, but serious side effects are extremely rare. Most side effects go away on their own in a few days. The most common side effect is a sore arm at the injection site. 
  • Safe COVID-19 vaccines were developed quickly through use of a century of vaccine experience; technology that was new to vaccines but had been studied for two decades; a prototype coronavirus vaccine already in development at National Institutes of Health; and tens of thousands of volunteers for clinical trials that enabled rapid accumulation of data on safety and effectiveness. Simultaneous vaccine production and analysis of testing data also allowed vaccines to be shipped within days of FDA authorization.
  • The federal government is providing the vaccines free of charge to all people in the United States.
  • Everyone 6 months or older should get a COVID vaccine. You have three ways to find vaccines near you:
    • Go to vaccines.gov
    • Text your ZIP code to 438829
    • Call 1-800-232-0233