In an almost surreal way, writing about COVID-19 as a political commentator has become almost second nature. Two years ago, I would have laughed at the idea that we’d still be covering the virus, but here we are, still having it be part of our daily conversation.

That’s not by choice, of course. Instead, it’s because our leaders have insisted on tying the two areas of health and politics together so tightly. When a pandemic is constantly used to crush liberties and hand power to people with tyrannical leanings, that’s not a story that can be ignored.

In all the disinformation and obfuscation of the last several years from the government, though, no issue has been more abused than natural immunity. We’ve known since the beginning months of the pandemic that those who are previously infected gain lasting, durable immunity from the virus. Yet, the CDC, two presidential administrations, and the mainstream media have all steadfastly refused to acknowledge that reality.

Finally, that has changed.

Finally honesty by the CDC via The NY Times:

“Unvaccinated people with a history of Covid also had lower rates of infection and hospitalization than those protected by vaccines alone.

The data are consistent with trends observed in international studies, the researchers said.” pic.twitter.com/DqyILGnxeV

— Eli Klein (@TheEliKlein) January 19, 2022

You don’t say? Welcome to the party the rest of us have been hosting for a year-and-a-half.

Some of us have been writing on natural immunity since the summer of 2020. We’ve charged ahead, amidst an onslaught of false “fact-checks” to present the data that clearly shows that those with a prior COVID infection are protected and likely don’t need to get vaccinated. In that time, we’ve been maligned as anti-science and called grandma killer, among other choice descriptors. Even after multiple studies emerged over the last year proving natural immunity was real and viable, the government and its media allies still pretended it didn’t exist.

And in the off chance you did get a member of those groups to admit the obvious, they’d usually respond with a non sequitur like “oh, so you are suggesting people purposely get COVID?” But no one was ever suggesting that. Rather, we were just pointing out that tens of millions of people had gotten COVID, not by choice, many before the vaccines even came out, and that to ignore their natural immunity is anti-science.

Still, as shocking and late as this admission is, it means nothing if the CDC doesn’t change its guidelines. Will they now include natural immunity in their push for things like “vaccine passports”? Or will they continue down the same, absolutist road where if you aren’t triple-vaxxed, you lose your rights? I think we can speculate with some confidence exactly how things will turn out. There will be no change in policy because the Biden administration will never let that happen. To do so would be to admit they’ve been wrong all along, and they can’t have that.