Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • The Atlantic

    Listen: Misinformation Mailbag

    How do you talk with a loved one who believes pandemic conspiracy theories?
    Dec 06, 2020 7 minutes
    Source: AP / The Atlantic

    Listeners wrote into the Social Distance podcast with questions about all kinds of pandemic misinformation: tests, masks, supplements, vaccines, and more. Hosts James Hamblin and Katherine Wells discuss conspiracy theories, false remedies, and how to approach the people that believe in them.

    Listen to their conversation here:

    Subscribe to Social Distance on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or another podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they’re published.

    What follows is a transcript of their conversation, edited and condensed for clarity:

    Katherine Wells: Here’s a question from a listener: “I live with someone who believes the reported number of U.S. COVID-19 cases is being inflated by hospitals to ‘get more money.’ They don’t believe there is a pandemic or even an epidemic.”

    James Hamblin: Well, hospitals are not doing well on the whole. It’s been a tremendous burden on staff. It’s meant closing and canceling and delaying a lot of the elective procedures that tend to be revenue-generating streams for hospitals. Hospital beds are usually close to capacity. So, no, hospitals are not profiting off of this.

    They’re actually losing money for

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from The Atlantic

    The Atlantic5 min read
    The Strangest Job in the World
    This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. The role of first lady couldn’t be stranger. You attain the position almost by accident, simply by virtue of being married to the president
    The Atlantic6 min read
    The Happy Way to Drop Your Grievances
    Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. In 15th-century Germany, there was an expression for a chronic complainer: Greiner, Zanner, which can be translated as “whiner-grumbler.” It was no
    The Atlantic6 min read
    There’s Only One Way to Fix Air Pollution Now
    It feels like a sin against the sanctitude of being alive to put a dollar value on one year of a human life. A year spent living instead of dead is obviously priceless, beyond the measure of something so unprofound as money. But it gets a price tag i

    Related Books & Audiobooks