Myth: Vaccines for pneumonia protect against COVID-19
This is not true. While there are vaccines for other causes of pneumonia, there is no vaccine that can prevent Covid-19. Pneumonia is a disease caused by many different bugs, such as bacteria and viruses, including the new coronavirus. Pneumonia is a serious lung infection and it causes symptoms such as chest pain and difficulty breathing. There is no vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus. But there are vaccines that protect against other causes of pneumonia. These vaccines do not directly protect you from the new coronavirus, but they do help keep your lungs healthy and that is especially important while the new coronavirus is spreading. That’s because if you have a lung infection caused by one bug, you are more likely to catch a second bug on top of that and more likely to get seriously sick. If you are in a group that should get the pneumonia vaccine – including people over the age of 65 years, and people with certain health conditions – then it’s important that you are up to date with your vaccinations. Remember: there is no vaccine for the new coronavirus. The pneumonia vaccines we have now do not directly protect against the new coronavirus, but they help to keep the lungs healthy overall.
Note: There are now vaccines to protect against COVID-19. All of our content is produced using the best evidence available at the time of publishing. We will do our best to update content as information evolves, but please visit the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website for the most up-to-date information on COVID-19: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html