About this episode
Was everything we did during COVID-19 a mistake — or are critics rewriting history? In this episode, Jerusalem Demsas talked with The Atlantic's Roge Karma about his reporting on “COVID revisionism,” which is gaining popularity across the political spectrum. The belief posits that not only were lockdowns, masking, and other public-health measures ineffective, but officials knew they wouldn’t work.
Together, they traced how early uncertainty, mixed messaging, and political polarization created today’s crisis of trust in public health. They debated what the data actually showed about nonpharmaceutical interventions, how institutions weighed (or ignored) trade-offs, and what lessons we should carry into the next pandemic. From Sweden to school closures, from Francis Collins to the Great Barrington Declaration, this conversation asks what it means to learn from catastrophe without rewriting it.
The Argument is a podcast dedicated to honest, unflinching debate about the biggest questions facing democracy, culture, and our future. As the host, Jerusalem Demsas will bring together voices across the political spectrum to argue, challenge, and persuade. Each episode is a space where disagreements are confronted directly, with clarity and conviction, rather than hidden or shouted down.
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Articles, studies, and posts referenced in the episode can be found on our website at https://www.theargumentmag.com/s/the-argument-podcast
The Argument is produced by Justin Zuckerman, fact-checked by Eli Richman, with music by Breakmaster Cylinder and art by Ben Tousley. To watch an ad-free version of this episode, become a paid subscriber at TheArgumentMag.com
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