The Denial of Natural Immunity to Covid (and consequent denial of vax exemption)
The Administrative State’s collective disregard for the benefits of natural immunity to Covid provides another example of how it blindly prioritized bureaucratic will over liberty and even logic. Federal officials were hell-bent on making sure everyone received a Covid vaccine, whether they “needed” it or not. Bureaucrats demanded that we “trust the science,” while they did the opposite. Even though the scientists at the top of our public health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) knew that natural immunity to the Covid virus was real, they denied its existence for well over a year in a misguided effort to maximize the number of people who would obtain vaccines.
Dozens of government agencies mandated that their employees, contractors, enrollees, and anyone else they could command submit to Covid vaccination to keep their jobs, attend classes, or receive other benefits. These decrees were so absolute that they provided no exceptions for individuals who had already contracted Covid and could prove they had thereby acquired antibodies naturally (a/k/a “natural immunity”).
Cases brought by NCLA demonstrate the senselessness of these demands as well as the difficulties with trying to protect liberty associated with basic but not “fundamental” rights. NCLA represented employees of universities[1] that issued essentially universal vaccine requirements. The employees presented evidence from experts demonstrating, among other things, that vaccines were medically unnecessary for people with sufficient antibodies from a prior infection, that natural immunity was at least as robust and durable as any immunity provided by a vaccine, and that vaccination of those who had already contracted and recovered from Covid presented a higher risk of adverse side effects.[2] Further, mandatory vaccination contradicted the federal statute that allowed the Food and Drug Administration to rush approval of the Covid vaccines for “emergency use” using much less demanding standards than required for traditional approval.
Unfortunately, timid courts generally upheld vaccine requirements, even for those naturally immune. The courts accepted the flawed argument that the vaccinations were “voluntary” because people could choose to give up their jobs or other benefits rather than get a vaccination. More specifically, the courts held that when a vaccination did not interfere with a fundamental right, the Administrative State needed only to provide a “rational basis” for its demands, even if that basis relied on a false premise. In essence the courts found that because people could give up their at-will employment or benefits, being required to take a vaccine to continue to work or attend class did not impinge on a right, for example, to bodily integrity.
The courts’ position also created a Catch-22 for NCLA’s lawsuits. We were not allowed to sue CDC over its scientifically flawed “guidance” that denied the existence of natural immunity because it was mere guidance. At the same time, our clients were denied standing to sue the universities who required them to be vaccinated, because the universities’ reliance on CDC’s guidance was deemed rational (even when the schools were inconsistent by, for example, accepting inferior Chinese vaccines that U.S. health officials never approved).
While many who received the emergency use vaccinations did so gladly, tens of thousands of people were put to the choice of either jeopardizing their livelihoods or else surrendering their liberty and facing health risks (“jobs or jabs”). We’ve all heard of—and NCLA has represented—people who had natural immunity but lost their jobs to protect their beliefs. Time has vindicated those who questioned the wisdom of universal vaccine mandates, and we will never be able to quantify the financial, physical, and psychological toll of the Administrative State’s for
[1] https://nclalegal.org/case/norris-v-samuel-l-stanley-jr-in-his-official-capacity-as-president-of-michigan-state-university/; https://nclalegal.org/case/professor-todd-zywicki-v-gregory-washington-in-his-official-capacity-as-president-of-george-mason-university-et-al/
[2] https://nclalegal.org/filing/class-action-complaint-for-declaratory-and-injunctive-relief-2/
April 7, 2025