Joe Rogan condemned for telling ‘healthy 21-year-olds’ to not take Covid vaccine
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Joe Rogan has sparked a backlash after claiming that young and healthy people need not get a coronavirus vaccine.
Speaking on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, he compared the effects of Covid to a “cold” and said:
“I think you should get vaccinated if you’re vulnerable. My parents are vaccinated.
“But if you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I’ll go no. If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”
But his comments have caused an outcry because coronavirus is something young people need to worry about.
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Scientists estimate that at least 70 per cent of the population need to be inoculated against the virus in order for herd immunity to occur. Of course, young people can spread Covid to those more vulnerable regardless of their own experience with the illness.
An increasing number of young people are being hospitalised with Covid in the US, CNN reports, due to the fast-spreading variant first see in the UK. Meanwhile, data from the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital Association reveals that 296 children have died of Covid-19 in the US.
But Rogan claimed children’s experience of the illness would be mild like a “cold” and his guest, comedian Dave Smith, agreed and claimed that vaccinating children was “virtue signalling”.
It is not the first time his comments have made people squirm. He has previously compared deaths from Covid to deaths from swimming, smoking and driving and has frequently compared it to the flu. He has also come under fire for interviewing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and validating some of his arguments.
Responding to this latest backlash, a source from Spotify which exclusively hosts the podcast said they chose to keep it online because he did not give a call to action to young people, according to The Verge. They have however in the past removed more overt coronavirus misinformation.
But people on Twitter had stronger reactions:
My feeling is that, no matter what your age, you should not take medical advice from Joe Rogan
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) April 27, 2021
dudes will be like “do your own research before trusting these vaccines” and the whole time they were just waiting for joe rogan to tell them what to do
— Moh (@LessIsMoh) April 27, 2021
Healthy young people DEFINITELY SHOULD get the vaccine. That’s how we stop the spread. Not rocket science guys. It’s about returning to normal and saving lives. In India they are literally burning bodies in the street while people like Joe Rogan encourage people not to vaccinate.
— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) April 28, 2021
The people who watch @joerogan’s show are the people we desperately need to vaccinate in order to speed up the end of the pandemic. Joe isn’t just endangering their lives he’s endangering the rest of us too.
— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) April 28, 2021
And it seems Twitter itself saw the comments as misinformation:
Twitter has now placed a label on @AlexPattyy‘s tweet that called out the coronavirus misinfo on Joe Rogan’s show. 🙃 pic.twitter.com/sL4asiqXIo
— Ryan Mac🙃 (@RMac18) April 27, 2021
Overall, we’ll stick with the experts for our vaccine info.
