crystal, so the gap opening upon cooling should be due to a Peierls lattice instability. Nevertheless, Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations failed to substantiate Goodenough’s claim [@wentzcovitch1994_vo; @eyert2002_metal_insulator_transitions_vo2] so the nature of the insulating state in VO$_2$ remained a puzzle. The development of methods that incorporate strong correlation effects in realistic lattice calculations provided new light. Eventually, Biermann et al. showed using Cluster Dynamical Mean Field Theory (CDMFT) with DFT that strong correlations due to local Coulomb repulsion may lead to the opening of a gap [@biermann2005_dynamical_singlets_correlation_assisted_peierls_transition_invo2; @tomczak2008_effective_bandstructure_insulating_phase_versus]. Hence, the ground state was considered a “Peierls insulator with dynamical correlations”. This theoretical problem continued to attract theoretical attention as the numerical techniques were further improved. Weber et al. [@weber2012_vanadium_dioxide] argued that the mechanism driving the insulator state was better characterized as a “Peierls assisted orbitally selective Mott transition”. They observed that mainly the a$_{1g}$ orbital drives the opening of the gap. A more recent study where the oxygen atoms were explicitly included [@brito2016_metal_insulator_transition_in_vo] enabled a more comprehensive account of the various phases observed in VO$_2$. However, it also led to the reinterpretation of the transition as a “Mott transition in the presence of strong intersite exchange”. We should also mention 