Some public health experts hope that Americans will welcome the new shot as they would a flu jab. But demand for the vaccine has dropped sharply since 2021 when it first became available and more than 240 million people in the U.S., or 73% of the population, received at least one shot.
In the fall of 2022, by which time most people had either had the COVID virus or the vaccine, fewer than 50 million people got the shots.
Is anyone else super annoyed by the use of the word “jab” in news articles/headlines? It just sounds so unprofessional.
“Jab” got adopted in the US when the disinformation memes and stuff started flooding into social media. The creators of the memes learned British English, so they used British slang.
Isn’t “jab” what people from the UK call it? In the US, we just call them “shots.” That’s not necessarily any better. Or worse, for that matter.
I’ve seen US publications use it, too. But knowing it’s a UK thing makes me feel better about it for some reason…
Absolutely. I don’t understand why headlines try so hard to use slang.
It’s just the word for it in the UK. Not the formal medical one, but I’d hardly call it slang either.