Everyone ages 6 months and older is eligible for an updated COVID-19 vaccine, but some groups benefit significantly more than others. The CDC’s current framework emphasizes individual decision-making, weighing personal risk factors against the protection the vaccine offers. Here’s how to figure out where you fall.
The General Recommendation
The CDC recommends the updated COVID-19 vaccine for everyone 6 months and older, regardless of whether they’ve ever received a previous COVID-19 vaccine. That said, the 2025-2026 guidelines shifted toward individual decision-making, which means the recommendation carries different weight depending on your age, health status, and risk level. The vaccine is available to all, but it matters most for people at higher risk of severe illness.
Who Benefits Most
Certain groups face a substantially higher chance of hospitalization or serious complications from COVID-19, making the updated vaccine especially important for them. Adults 65 and older are at the top of this list. CDC data from the 2024-2025 season showed the vaccine reduced COVID-related hospitalizations by about 45% in older adults without immune-compromising conditions, measured roughly two months after vaccination.
People with chronic health conditions also stand to gain the most protection. The CDC identifies a long list of conditions that raise your risk of severe COVID-19:
- Heart conditions: heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathies, and possibly high blood pressure
- Chronic lung disease: moderate-to-severe asthma, COPD, emphysema, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension
- Diabetes: type 1 or type 2
- Chronic kidney disease at any stage
- Chronic liver disease: including fatty liver disease and cirrhosis
- Cancer
- Overweight and obesity
- HIV infection
- Dementia or other neurological conditions
- Mental health conditions: including depression and schizophrenia spectrum disorders
- Substance use disorders
If you have any of these conditions, the calculus tips strongly toward getting vaccinated.
Immunocompromised Individuals
People with weakened immune systems occupy a special category. This includes anyone taking medications that suppress the immune system (such as after an organ transplant), people undergoing cancer treatment, and those with conditions like HIV that directly affect immune function. The updated vaccine reduced hospitalization risk by about 40% in immunocompromised adults 65 and older, slightly lower than the 45% seen in people with healthy immune systems, but still meaningful protection.
If you’re immunocompromised, you don’t need a doctor’s note to confirm it. The CDC allows you to self-identify your status. You may also be eligible for additional doses beyond what’s recommended for the general population, and the spacing between your doses may differ. Your vaccination schedule will depend on how many doses you’ve already received and which vaccine you got previously.
Pregnant and Breastfeeding People
Pregnancy increases your risk of severe COVID-19, placing you in a higher-risk category. Studies involving more than a million pregnant women worldwide have found no increased risk of miscarriage, preterm delivery, stillbirth, or birth defects from COVID-19 vaccination. You can receive the vaccine at any point during pregnancy.
If you’re breastfeeding, the vaccine is also considered safe. No severe reactions have been observed in breastfeeding mothers or their babies. There’s an added potential benefit: studies have found that vaccinated mothers produce antibodies in their breast milk that could help protect their infants.
Children and Teens
Children 6 months and older are eligible. The number of doses a child needs depends on their age and vaccination history. Young children (6 months through 4 years) who have never been vaccinated typically need a multi-dose initial series, usually three doses spaced several weeks apart. Children who completed an earlier series generally need just one updated dose.
Children in this youngest age group should receive all their doses from the same manufacturer. For kids 5 and older who’ve been previously vaccinated, a single updated dose is the standard recommendation, given at least 8 weeks after their last dose.
How Long to Wait After Your Last Dose or Infection
For most adults ages 12 through 64, the recommended interval is at least 8 weeks after your last COVID-19 vaccine dose. Adults 65 and older follow the same 8-week minimum. One newer vaccine formulation has a slightly longer recommended interval of 3 months, though a dose given at 2 months doesn’t need to be repeated.
If you recently had COVID-19, you can still get vaccinated, but many providers suggest waiting a similar interval to let your natural immune response settle before adding vaccine-generated immunity on top of it. There’s no strict rule that prevents you from getting vaccinated sooner if you prefer.
For adults 65 and older, a second updated dose is available 6 months after the first, providing an option for sustained protection through a full respiratory virus season.
What the Latest Vaccine Targets
The 2025-2026 formula targets the JN.1 lineage of the virus, with a preference for the LP.8.1 strain. This was chosen to more closely match the variants currently circulating. Like previous updates, it’s a monovalent vaccine, meaning it focuses on a single viral target rather than combining multiple strains. The FDA’s advisory committee voted unanimously for this formulation.
How Effective the Updated Vaccine Is
Real-world data from the 2024-2025 season gives a practical picture of what the vaccine does. Among adults 18 and older, the updated vaccine reduced COVID-related emergency department and urgent care visits by 33% in the first four months after vaccination. That protection was slightly higher (36%) in the first two months and dipped modestly to 30% between months two and four.
The hospitalization numbers are more striking for older adults. In people 65 and older with healthy immune systems, the vaccine cut hospitalization risk by 45-46% across two separate CDC surveillance networks. For immunocompromised older adults, that figure was 40%. These numbers reflect protection measured about two months post-vaccination on average.
Protection Against Long COVID
Beyond preventing severe acute illness, vaccination appears to reduce the risk of developing long COVID. A systematic review of 12 studies found that most showed significant reductions in long COVID rates among vaccinated people. The odds of developing long COVID dropped substantially with each dose: one study found that three doses of vaccine reduced the odds by 84% compared to being unvaccinated.
Even getting vaccinated after a COVID infection seems to help. Three of five studies examining post-infection vaccination found significant reductions in long COVID symptoms. One study reported that vaccinated patients had roughly twice the odds of recovering from existing long COVID compared to unvaccinated patients. No studies found that vaccination worsened long COVID.
Common Side Effects
About 92% of vaccine recipients report at least one side effect, but the vast majority are mild and short-lived. The most common reactions, based on a study of nearly 7,000 participants: injection site pain, redness, or swelling (79%), fatigue (70%), and headache (49%). Muscle pain affects about 30% of people, and fever occurs in roughly 30% as well. Joint pain (22%), nausea (16%), and swollen lymph nodes (11%) are less common. Chills, dizziness, and diarrhea each occur in fewer than 5% of recipients. Severe allergic reactions are rare, reported in about 0.6% of cases.
These reactions typically resolve within a day or two. They tend to be more pronounced after mRNA vaccines compared to other formulations, with injection site reactions in particular being more common with Moderna than Pfizer.