Joe Rogan with guest Andrew Santino on April 29th.
Despite heavy blowback from the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the broader medical community, Joe Rogan isn’t changing his opinion on the COVID-19 vaccine.
Should younger, healthy people take the COVID-19 vaccine? Joe Rogan says he still wouldn’t recommend it, though he clarified that he isn’t an anti-vaxxer. “There’s some legitimate science behind [COVID-19 vaccines],” Rogan told his latest guest, Andrew Santino. “This is the thing about this whole thing, people being upset at me: I’m not an anti-vax person.”
Instead, Rogan stated that he’s very pro-vaccine for those that need or want it, particularly those that are vulnerable to the virus. “I said, ‘I believe [the vaccines are] safe,’ and I encouraged many people to take them,” he explained. “My parents were vaccinated. I just said, ‘I don’t think that if you’re a young, healthy person, that you need it.’”
That’s an accurate paraphrase of what Rogan stated on an earlier podcast that started the firestorm — and it’s a stance that Rogan is sticking with.
“People say, ‘do you think it’s safe to get vaccinated?’ and I’ve said, ‘Yeah, I think for the most part it’s safe to get vaccinated, I do, I do,’” Rogan stated earlier. “But if you’re 21 years old, and you ask me if you should get vaccinated, I’d say ‘no.’”
“Are you healthy? Are you a healthy person?” Rogan continued. “Look, don’t do anything stupid, but you should take care of yourself. If you’re a healthy person and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”
That prompted a sharp rebuke from both the White House and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who accused Rogan of speaking selfishly and putting vulnerable members of society at risk.
“You’re talking about yourself in a vacuum,” Fauci criticized. “So if you want to only worry about yourself and not society, then that’s okay,” Fauci continued. “But if you’re saying to yourself, even if I get infected, I could do damage to somebody else even if I have no symptoms at all, and that’s the reason why you’ve got to be careful and get vaccinated.”
That’s a point that Rogan acknowledged, though he argued it was a separate discussion. “Their argument was, you need it for other people,” Rogan said. “That makes more sense, but that’s a different argument. That’s a different conversation.”
Leading up to that discussion, Rogan has sharply criticized leaders like California governor Gavin Newsom, New York governor Andrew Cuomo, and Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti for imposing lockdowns, forced shutdowns, and ‘one-size-fits-all’ remedies.
Rogan has also stressed the importance of physical fitness, diet, and other immunity-boosting activities that protect against the virus. For example, Rogan frequently cites a CDC statistic showing that a substantial majority of COVID-19 complications and deaths involve those who are obese or overweight, while also noting that a very high percentage of COVID-19 deaths also involve multiple co-morbidities.
On that last point, Rogan has stressed that just 6% of COVID-19 deaths are caused by COVID alone, also citing CDC statistics.