Now imagine for the sake of argument that back in February, when the government was reassuring everyone that everything was okay, if people like me and other epidemiologists trying to sound the alarm had been muzzled, or told that we were giving inconsistent information when we were telling the truth. I don’t accept that we are better off silencing people saying things that we don’t agree with. I totally, fundamentally reject that, not just from a principle of free expression, but also wanting to optimally meet grave challenges. So let me tell you what I would put in its place.

If a hospital is concerned that wrong information is spreading, the way to gain credibility is to stand up in a meeting or release a public statement once a day saying, “We have heard the following things: Our nurses are reporting a shortage of PPE in our hospital. This is true! And here is the challenge we’re facing as a nation. This is what we’re trying to do about it. Or, “This is false, and here’s why we reject it. Here is the evidentiary basis.” This increases credibility when we need it. It provides the public with confidence that the people leading them or who are responsible for their lives are telling the truth. Whereas if you try to suppress it, I'm thinking, What else is the hospital hiding that they don’t want me to know? Why should I trust anything they say?

Fred Milgrim: A New York doctor’s warning

Friedersdorf: What useful things might we learn if doctors and nurses are able to speak freely?

Christakis: We might learn, for instance, that doctors and nurses need housing because they don’t want to go home to their loved ones, that they’re willing to work but would welcome it if a local hotel owner gave them a place to stay. We might learn that they need child care, and be motivated to figure out how to provide it. We might learn that they need meals or want food delivered so that they can be more efficient at work and work harder. We all know now about the shortage of PPE. The more we hear about it, or the more anecdotes or stories that people in different communities get, the more people might be motivated to share the PPE that they’ve previously been hoarding.

We might learn about hot spots that we didn’t know about, or that even though the governor of state X says nothing is wrong, actually workers in a hospital there say we have an outbreak. There are so many ways in which the frank exchange of information and the forthright confrontation of falsehoods that may circulate, perhaps as rumors, enhance our ability to fight this epidemic. A hospital that corrects a false rumor has an opportunity to enhance their credibility.

Friedersdorf: But surely some false rumors do harm.

Christakis: We have all these hucksters in our nation—including some TV celebrities, some religious figures—who are circulating falsehoods about the efficacy of certain treatments. And they’re just making a buck. These people should be despised. They are in the worst tradition of snake-oil salesmen. So much so that they were caricatured in the movie Contagion by the man who was selling forsythia.