Should You Get the COVID-19 Vaccine if You’re Currently Infected?

People who are infected with COVID-19 should isolate (if needed) and practice safety measures for the health of the public. Experts say a COVID-19 vaccine appointment is no reason to break isolation and put others at risk of infection.

The CDC recommendations state that if you test positive or have symptoms of COVID, you should:

• Isolate at home until you've been fever-free for 24 hours (without the help of medication) AND your symptoms are mild and improving.
• Take additional precautions for five days following isolation, such as wearing a well-fitting mask, keeping a distance from others, and washing your hands often.
  

“If you’re actively infected, you should stay home—you should not get the vaccine,” Deborah Lehman, MD, a pediatrics and infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells Verywell. “If you have any symptoms at all, you should not be getting the vaccine or really going out in public.”

For people who are actively infected, the CDC recommends deferring any vaccine appointments until the person has met the guidelines for leaving isolation.

For those who have recently recovered from COVID-19, the CDC says your next vaccine dose can be deferred for three months.

When a person is infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, their immune response triggers the production of antibodies that can recognize and attack the virus. The cells that create these antibodies are able to remember and attack the virus after the person has recovered from the disease. This ability is referred to as immunological memory.

Since the start of the pandemic, researchers have been studying how long immunity lasts from infection or vaccination alone, or from hybrid immunity. A review published in 2023 in Infectious Diseases and Therapy reported that immune memory gained from infection can provide protection eight months after infection. With a larger vaccinated population and new variants, research is ongoing to better understand the immune system response.

As of May 2023, over 80% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Since new variants have emerged and the vaccines have been updated to better protect against these variants, the CDC recommends that everyone continue to stay up to date with their vaccination.

Differentiating Between Symptoms

When getting your vaccine, you may go through a symptom screening process before entering, where you'll answer a series of questions about common symptoms.

Some COVID-19 symptoms—such as fever, chills, and body aches—are also possible side effects of the vaccine. This can make it challenging to differentiate between illness and a normal immune response to the vaccine.

“The CDC recommends that people who are actively infected with COVID-19 not receive the vaccine until their symptoms have completely resolved," Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, tells Verywell in an email. "The main reason is that it would be difficult to distinguish possible adverse events associated with the vaccine from symptoms caused by the virus."

The Bottom Line

If you're sick with COVID-19, you should wait until you've recovered before getting your next dose. There is little research that has studied the effects of receiving a vaccination while actively sick with COVID-19, since those who have symptoms are recommended to defer their vaccinations.

For now, there is no evidence that being infected with COVID-19 changes the effectiveness of the vaccine or causes bodily harm. Getting vaccinated while you're sick will not likely boost your immune response against your current infection.

The information in this article is current as of the date listed, which means newer information may be available when you read this. For the most recent updates on COVID-19, visit our coronavirus news page.