Dr. Anthony Fauci blasted Joe Rogan on Wednesday after the popular podcaster claimed healthy young Americans don’t need to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
In an interview with the “Today” show, Fauci said Rogan’s logic was selfish and wrong-headed because unvaccinated young people could “inadvertently and innocently” spread the virus to others.
“You’re talking about yourself in a vacuum,” he said. “If you want to only worry about yourself and not society, then that’s OK. But 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.”
Young people who refuse to get jabbed also put themselves at risk, said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“You’re worried about yourself getting infected and the likelihood that you’re not going to get any symptoms. But you can get infected, and will get infected, if you put yourself at risk,” he said.
Asked if healthy young people should get vaccinated, Fauci said, “Absolutely.”
Fauci was responding to comments made by Rogan last week on his podcast “Joe Rogan Experience,” which reportedly rakes in more than 190 million downloads per month.
“Are you healthy?” Rogan said. “Are you a healthy person? Like, 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 also claimed that COVID-19 is not “statistically dangerous for children.”
“I can tell you as someone who has — both my children got the virus. It was nothing,” he continued. “I mean, I hate to say that if someone’s children died from this. I’m very sorry that that happened. I’m not in any way diminishing that. But I’m saying the personal experience that my children had with COVID was nothing.”
A study released in February showed that people ages 20 to 49 are the biggest spreaders of COVID-19 in the US.