I mentioned this in another thread, but this is almost certainly just an optics thing rather than an actual definitional change.
People who study medicine know there's absolutely no way to become "immune" to any disease that can affect humans. You can train your body to respond more efficiently to attack and give it more tools to respond, but you will never achieve "immunity."
The word "immune" in the medical world doesn't carry the absoluteness that the civilian version of the word does.
"Immune" in the civilian world means "impervious." Superman is immune to bullets. It is impossible to kill Superman with a bullet because he is immune.
An immune system doesn't make you impervious to anything. It provides protection. An immune response will fight injury and disease, but has no guarantees.
Now that the pandemic and the vaccine have highlighted these terms and people are not certain exactly what to expect, changing the term to remove the words "immune" and "prevent disease" ensures people don't assume they have perfect protection just because they got the vaccine.
The vaccine does provide immunity. Just in the medical sense of the word, not the one that most people are familiar with. Changing the term reduces the possibility that people believe a false promise.
multi vitamins are now a vaccine. thanks cdc
Websters did the same in March 2020
We need to do away with the cdc.
Who said the CDC could change the definitions of words in the English language?
I mentioned this in another thread, but this is almost certainly just an optics thing rather than an actual definitional change.
People who study medicine know there's absolutely no way to become "immune" to any disease that can affect humans. You can train your body to respond more efficiently to attack and give it more tools to respond, but you will never achieve "immunity."
The word "immune" in the medical world doesn't carry the absoluteness that the civilian version of the word does.
"Immune" in the civilian world means "impervious." Superman is immune to bullets. It is impossible to kill Superman with a bullet because he is immune.
An immune system doesn't make you impervious to anything. It provides protection. An immune response will fight injury and disease, but has no guarantees.
Now that the pandemic and the vaccine have highlighted these terms and people are not certain exactly what to expect, changing the term to remove the words "immune" and "prevent disease" ensures people don't assume they have perfect protection just because they got the vaccine.
The vaccine does provide immunity. Just in the medical sense of the word, not the one that most people are familiar with. Changing the term reduces the possibility that people believe a false promise.
Straight out of the communist playbook.