Communicating With a General Audience

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Tone that resonates with a general audience

  • Use credible, science-based information.
  • Remind people that advice may change as COVID changes and as we learn more.
  • Acknowledge that it’s normal for people to have questions about the vaccines and that their questions matter.
  • Remind people that vaccines are another tool in the toolkit to protect themselves and loved ones.

Messages that resonate with general audiences

  • Getting and staying up to date with your COVID vaccine will mean spending more time with loved ones and engaging with your community.
  • All COVID vaccines available for use in the United States are safe. Millions of people in the United States have received COVID vaccines. The vaccines will continue to undergo extensive safety monitoring. CDC recommends that everyone 6 months or older get vaccinated against COVID.
  • All available COVID vaccines work well to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, and death due to COVID.
  • Everyone 6 months or older in the United States should get and stay up to date with their COVID vaccine.
  • Stay up to date with your COVID vaccine to get the most protection.
  • Talk to your vaccine or health care provider about when you need to get a COVID vaccine dose.
  • It’s especially important for the following people to get and stay up to date with their COVID vaccine because they’re at increased risk for severe illness from COVID:
    • People 50 and older
    • People who live in long-term care settings
    • People with certain medical conditions
    • Pregnant and recently pregnant people
  • If you recently had COVID, you can wait 3 months from when you got sick to get the COVID vaccine dose you need.
  • COVID spreads most commonly between people who are in close contact with one another. Vaccines offer you the best protection from COVID.
  • COVID vaccines can cause side effects in some people, but serious side effects are very 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 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 quickly provided data on safety and effectiveness. Simultaneous vaccine production and analysis of testing data also allowed vaccines to be shipped within days of FDA authorization.
  • Find vaccines near you at vaccines.gov.