This week the Biden administration touted a milestone: 60 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. That’s a significant achievement; a delivery on a primary campaign promise. Its meaning would be undermined by a changing definition. If “fully vaccinated” meant having a booster, then suddenly the same CDC data would tell us that only 20-some percent of Americans are fully vaccinated. And then, at a logistical level, employer mandates and other systems of verification—which were designed and implemented around some immutable yes/no binary idea of whether a person was vaccinated—would need to change to adjust to the updated definition.

All of this complexity sends mixed messages to the public about just how important it is to get a booster. We’re effectively told it’s important, but not really.

Rather than arguing over how and when to update the definition of “fully vaccinated,” we should just abandon it. I’ve been suggesting this for a while, but in the moment it feels especially clear.