Joe Rogan criticised for claiming ‘healthy’ 21-year-olds shouldn’t ‘worry’ about getting coronavirus vaccine

‘Healthy young people DEFINITELY SHOULD get the vaccine,’ YouTuber Ethan Klein replied

Joe Rogan has come under fire for arguing that 21-year-olds should not get the coronavirus vaccine.

Interviewing comedian Dave Smith on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Spotify, the host and comedian said that he felt the vaccine was safe “for the most part” and that “vulnerable” people should be inoculated.

However, Rogan then said that he didn’t think “healthy” young people needed to be vaccinated.

“If you’re like 21 years old and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated?’ I’ll go no,” he said. “Are you healthy, are you a healthy person? 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.”

Rogan then turned to parents worried about their children needing to be vaccinated, stated that his own kids getting Covid-19 had been “nothing”, while adding that he didn’t mean to diminish the experience of parents who had lost children to the virus.

He said that it was amazing that parents not wanting to vaccinate their kids was seen as “controversial”, claiming: “We are not talking about even the flu… we are talking about something that is not statistically dangerous for children.”

Rogan’s comments go against the UK government’s guidelines on vaccination, which state: “The vaccines approved for use in the UK have met strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness set out by the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).”

More than 150,000 people have died in the UK with Covid-19 on their death certificates.

The MMA commentator’s words were widely criticised online, with YouTuber Ethan Klein, who posts videos as H3H3 Productions, tweeting: “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.

Rogan was defended by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who asked: “If you’ve gotten the vaccine, why is other peoples’ refusal to get the vaccine a problem for you?”

However, many people who heard the podcast criticised him for his comments.

“In India they are literally burning bodies in the street while people like Joe Rogan encourage people not to vaccinate.”

Another tweet read: “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.”

“My feeling is that, no matter what your age, you should not take medical advice from Joe Rogan,” one Twitter user commented, while another concurred: “Friends don’t let friends take medical advice from Joe Rogan.”