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It made news this week when The Lancet, a once-respected medical journal, finally admitted that there’s such a thing as “natural immunity” with COVID. (Is it too much to hope that, in another three years, The Lancet will cease referring to women as “bodies with vaginas”?)

Several months into “15 days to flatten the curve,” actual experts, like the Great Barrington Declaration scientists, began screaming from the rooftops about natural immunity. They argued — correctly, as it turns out — that we should protect the vulnerable while allowing those not at risk to go about their lives, get COVID and acquire immunity.

Millions upon millions of wrecked lives later (including 170,000 excess non-COVID deaths), the people who lied to us for their own selfish motives — getting on TV, high ratings for their panic porn, the joys of bossing other people around — are quietly admitting the truth.

Contrary to hysterical warnings in 2020 that “people you know” will die from COVID and “it’s definitely not just the flu,” I still don’t know anyone who knows anyone who died from COVID. For most people, it was “just the flu.”

How could the truth about natural immunity be suppressed for so long? At least there weren’t repeated studies during our COVID hell proving the strength and durability of immunity from a prior COVID infection.

Oh, except these:

May 2021: Washington University School of Medicine study finds “robust” antibodies still present at least 11 months after infection.

June 2021: Cleveland Clinic study finds no benefit from vaccination to those with natural immunity.

July 2021: Emory University Vaccine Center study finds “durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

August 2021: Israel study finds natural immunity “confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization” than two shots of the vaccine.

But medical journals, the mainstream media and “public health authorities” dismissed the notion that a prior COVID infection served any useful purpose. Those who mentioned it were treated like flat-earthers.

Days after the Great Barrington Declaration was released, the man chosen by President Donald Trump to lead the country’s response to COVID, Anthony Fauci, and Trump’s director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, colluded to ensure there would be a “quick and devastating published takedown” of the declaration.

As we now know, Twitter dutifully shadow-banned at least one of the signatories, Jay Bhattacharya.

Governors who followed the science — as opposed to Anthony THE SCIENCE Fauci — and opened their states were ripped in deranged headlines.

— “God Save the Florida Governor From His Stupidity” — The New Republic

“Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice” — The Atlantic. (President Trump also criticized the state, after a careful examination of the scientific evidence, no doubt.)

The final score on age-adjusted COVID deaths by state proves that the shutdowns accomplished absolutely nothing. Florida, for example, did way better than New York, New Jersey, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. — all top 10 “most aggressive” lockdown states. New Jersey did a lot worse than Wyoming, Kansas and Missouri, three of the least locked-down states. Whatever the explanation for the death rates — ethnicity, wealth, education, population density — it’s clearly not about how masked and locked-down a state was.

The Lancet‘s long-delayed admission sent me to Nexis to review the important medical advice I’d been getting from MSNBC’s TV doctors.

— “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams,” June 7, 2020

Dr. Murtaza Akhter, clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine: “Natural immunity is fine for a little bit. But that is not the way to protect yourself. The way to protect yourself from COVID is by being vaccinated and by just not getting it.”

— “All In With Chris Hayes,” Oct. 18, 2021

Dr. Syra Madad, an infectious disease epidemiologist and senior director of the Special Pathogens Program at New York Health and Hospitals system: “With natural infection … it’s like playing a game of Russian roulette. … You know, through natural infection, you’re risking a whole lot, not just yourself, but you know, for the community.”

— “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Oct. 27, 2021

Dr. Vin Gupta, NBC News medical contributor (in one of hundreds of appearances on MSNBC, I’m sure to the delight of his overworked colleagues): “People relying on natural protection, those antibodies are just not where they need to be to prevent an infection.”

— “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams,” Nov. 18, 2021

Gupta: “Natural immunity is 20% as effective at keeping you out of the hospital, in preventing serious illness. … It’s not nearly as effective as vaccine-induced immunity.”

— “The ReidOut With Joy Reid,” Jan. 10, 2022

Dr. Kavita Patel, MSNBC medical contributor: “Here’s the problem with natural immunity. It doesn’t last at the same levels forever.”

You couldn’t get the truth about a worldwide pandemic that led to catastrophic responses from public health authorities, but at least MSNBC’s doctors were “diverse”!