The new 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines are now available in Maryland. Vaccine protection decreases over time, so it is important to stay up to date with your COVID-19 vaccine.
Talk to your health care provider or find a 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine near you:
vaccines.gov.
The FDA approved and granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for the 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (manufactured by ModernaTX and Pfizer-BioNTech) on August 22, 2024.. FDA authorized Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted (2024 – 2025 Formula) under Emergency Use Authorization on August 30, 2024.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that everyone ages 6 months and older should get a 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccine helps protect you from severe disease, hospitalization, and death.
It is especially important to get your 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine if you are:
- ages 65 and older
- at high risk for severe COVID-19
- have never received a COVID-19 vaccine
Respiratory Virus Guidance for Additional Protection and Prevention
While vaccination is the best way to protect against severe COVID-19, there is recently updated
Respiratory Virus Guidance issued in March by the CDC. This guidance provides practical recommendations and information to help people lower health risks posed by a range of common respiratory viral illnesses, including COVID-19, flu and RSV.
On March 1, 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new Respiratory Virus Guidance for the general public in community settings, which provides practical recommendations and information to help people lower health risks posed by a range of common respiratory viral illnesses, including COVID-19, flu and RSV.
CDC offers separate, specific guidance for healthcare settings (COVID-19, flu, and general infection prevention and control). Federal civil rights laws may require reasonable modifications or reasonable accommodations in various circumstances. Nothing in this guidance is intended to detract from or supersede those laws.
Core Prevention Strategies
CDC guidance emphasizes the following prevention strategies for common respiratory viral illnesses:
- Stay up to date with immunizations - find a COVID-19 or flu vaccine near you at vaccines.gov.
- Practice good hygiene (practices that improve cleanliness).
- Take steps for cleaner air.
- When you may have a respiratory virus:
- Use precautions to prevent spread.
- Seek health care promptly for testing and/or treatment if you have risk factors for severe illness; treatment may help lower your risk of severe illness.
Updated CDC guidance for respiratory viruses is as follows:
- Stay home and away from others (including people you live with who are not sick) if you have respiratory virus symptoms that aren't better explained by another cause.
- You can go back to your normal activities when, for at least 24 hours, both are true:
- Your symptoms are getting better overall, and
- You have not had a fever (and are not using fever-reducing medication).
- When you go back to your normal activities, take added precaution over the next 5 days such as wearing a well-fitting mask, practicing good hand hygiene, physical distancing, and taking steps to improve air flow and filtration.
