Joe Rogan Slammed After Advising Young People Not To Get Covid-19 Vaccine

Joe Rogan is facing a backlash after he advised healthy young people against getting the Covid-19 vaccine. Watch here:

Speaking on an episode of his hugely popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience released on Spotify on Friday (23 April), the 53-year-old discouraged young people from getting vaccinated.

He said: "People say, 'Do you think it's safe to get vaccinated?' I've said, 'Yeah I think for the most part it's safe to get vaccinated.' I do. I do.

"But if you're, like, 21 years old, and you say to me, 'Should I get vaccinated?' I'll go 'No.'"

He continued: "Look, don't do anything stupid, but you should take care of yourself. You should - 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."

Rogan then pointed to anecdotal evidence of his own children's mild experiences with Covid-19 to support his point.

However, while Covid-19 has a more severe impact on older people, data shows that the risk of severe illness, long Covid and death among younger people far outweighs any health risks presented by the vaccines. What's more, the more people who are vaccinated, the safer the population as a whole.

A Public Health England study has shown that people who have had a single dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines can cut transmission by up to a half.

Dr Alan Stout, chairman of Northern Ireland's GP committee, explained to the BBC: "It is just so vital that we get everybody vaccinated.

"If we have as many people vaccinated as possible, the protection for the whole population is huge, it also stops the virus circulating which stops it then replicating, which massively, massively reduces our risk of the variants - which is what we fear most."

Given this, the criticism Rogan has faced on social media seems justified:

It's okay to not panic. LADbible and UNILAD's aim with our series, Cutting Through, is to provide our community with facts and stories from the people who are either qualified to comment or have experienced first-hand the situation we're facing. For more information from the World Health Organisation on Coronavirus, click here

Topics: Celebrity, joe rogan, vaccine, Covid-19

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey