“Emergency Podcast” With Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: Sam Harris Calls Out Jay For Wrongly Under-estimating Covid Deaths

Hi everyone,

I’ve declared a “podcast emergency” — something podcasters like Joe Rogan have done in pressing times in the past — in light of Sam Harris’ new podcast episode with journalists Bari Weiss ( ), Michael Shellenberger ( ), and Renee DiResta.

The episode centres on the Twitter Files series showing extraordinary levels of corruption, ideological bias, and selective banning on the social media platform. In the last half-hour of the episode, Sam and the rest discuss the Twitter blacklisting of Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Sam remarkably accuses Jay of under-estimating Covid deaths in March of 2020 and failing in his job as a public health expert at the time.

Here are clips below (alongside the link to Jay’s supposedly egregious article from 2020), posted on my Twitter:

Rav Arora @Ravarora1

In his new podcast episode, Sam Harris calls out @DrJBhattacharya, saying it was “not an accident Jay was perceived as a fringe figure” given his supposedly wild under-estimation of Covid deaths in the U.S.

I’m recording a podcast with @DrJBhattacharya tomorrow to discuss this.

10:13 PM ∙ Feb 4, 2023

Rav Arora @Ravarora1

Podcast episode with @bariweiss and @ShellenbergerMD on the Twitter Files.

Michael tries to defend Jay, saying Sam misinterpreted the article, but Sam doubles down and says Jay’s skepticism towards an estimated 3-4% mortality at the time was wrong. Link:

wsj.com/articles/is-th…

10:19 PM ∙ Feb 4, 2023

I won’t go into detail here, but as I’ve said before, Sam Harris — for all his extraordinary spiritual wisdom into the nature of suffering, selflessness, contentment, and mystical experience — has been abjectly wrong on Covid and mRNA vaccines. Not just in 2020 or 2021, but even now with his recent viral podcast appearances.

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3 months ago · 18 likes · 3 comments · Rav Arora

Due to this “podcast emergency” — yes, I know this is a made-up “emergency,” in some sense, in the narrow microcosm of online intellectual discourse (it’s kind of fun actually!) — I’m hosting Jay Bhattacharya on my podcast tomorrow to discuss Sam’s misleading claims about his views in 2020.

Moreover, we will dive deep into several claims Sam and other scientists he’s platformed have continually gotten wrong. Vaccine mandates, adverse events, vaccine efficacy etc. I look forward to the conversation.

For paid subscribers only, the comments are open below for you to send me any questions you have for Jay that I may ask on the podcast.

I’m doing this as a special thank you to those who are supporting my work. I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions. To those who aren’t paid subscribers, now is never too late to access exclusive perks like these: