The AC post clarifies the second statement with "People who are on hiatus from before now til the end of the HMD period can comment late with the same courtesy that they can reply to AC late if they're gone for all of it, but they must reply." For the sake of fairness, you have a 72 hour grace period to reply like you would with AC. With that window, if you reply to the post now and link it here, you're still good.