Tech

Joe Rogan slammed for saying young adults shouldn’t get COVID-19 vaccines

Joe Rogan is not a medical professional.

Photo of Claire Goforth

Claire Goforth

Joe Rogan talks into a microphone.

The United States is racing to vaccinate the roughly 70-90% of the population that experts recommend is necessary to achieve herd immunity to COVID-19 and return to pre-pandemic normalcy.

Featured Video

If Joe Rogan gets his way, Americans may never be able to attend concerts and travel without fear. On a recent episode of his popular Spotify show, Rogan said that he wouldn’t recommend vaccinations for healthy young people.

Alex Paterson of Media Matters reported Rogan’s comments on Tuesday afternoon.

On the show, Rogan said that, while he recommends COVID-19 vaccines for vulnerable people and those willing to take them, he doesn’t think everyone should be vaccinated.

Advertisement

“But if you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated?” he said. “I’ll go, ‘No. Are you healthy? Are you a healthy person?’”

Rogan, who is not an epidemiologist, virologist, or physician, later added, “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.”

Fellow non-doctor Dave Smith, who was on the show, wholeheartedly agreed.

“I’m not injecting my daughter with something to fucking virtue signal. Like, I’m not doing that,” Smith said.

Advertisement

Rogan’s take was met with swift pushback on social media.

“Stupidity is the most serious pandemic, and Joe Rogan is a super-spreader of it,” tweeted @JRehling.

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1387098790109265926?s=20
Advertisement
https://twitter.com/TerraChained/status/1387086158056894465?s=20
https://twitter.com/jtylerconway/status/1387102167237107717?s=20
Advertisement
https://twitter.com/ZachariusD/status/1387104594778464258?s=20
https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1387112872581476355?s=20

Rogan has increasingly been criticized for giving a platform to conspiracy theories and for saying things like mask-wearing is “for bitches.”

Advertisement

In January, he posted a maskless photo of himself partying with Dave Chapelle, Grimes, Elon Musk, and others. Chappelle subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.


From our friends at Nautilus

As the new school year begins, pediatric hospitals are filled up with COVID patient
Within a 10-day span, 6 people from this Florida church died from COVID—the majority were under 35
What is the doomsday COVID-19 variant, and why are scientists concerned?
Another new variant, this one from Colombia, is spreading inside the U.S.
Does the COVID vaccine make your breasts bigger?
Advertisement


To date, 570,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The virus is statistically deadlier in older and at-risk populations, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that thousands of young people—including children and those without pre-existing comorbidities—have perished and been permanently harmed by the virus.

Due to the highly contagious nature of the virus, rates of death and serious illness, and possibility for even more severe mutations, medical experts (of which Rogan definitely is not) recommend vaccinating as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

Advertisement

The Food and Drug Administration has approved vaccines for people aged 16 and up.

To date, roughly a third of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated; nearly half have received one dose.


Read more of the Daily Dot’s tech and politics coverage

Nevada’s GOP secretary of state candidate follows QAnon, neo-Nazi accounts on Gab, Telegram
Court filing in Bored Apes lawsuit revives claims founders built NFT empire on Nazi ideology
EXCLUSIVE: ‘Say hi to the Donald for us’: Florida police briefed armed right-wing group before they went to Jan. 6 protest
Inside the Proud Boys’ ties to ghost gun sales
‘Judas’: Gab users are furious its founder handed over data to the FBI without a subpoena
EXCLUSIVE: Anti-vax dating site that let people advertise ‘mRNA FREE’ semen left all its user data exposed
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
Advertisement

 
The Daily Dot