The wildly popular podcast host, comedian and UFC commentator Joe Rogan has tested positive for COVID-19, he said on Wednesday.
Rogan, who moved his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” to Austin last year, said he started to feel ill Saturday night after traveling. He had been in Florida for three stops on his “Scared Clown Tour.”
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He said he felt “weary” and had a headache.
“I just felt run down,” he said, adding that he separated from his family before he got tested. Over the night he said he had a fever and sweats.
“I knew what was going on,” he said. When the results came back positive, he said “we immediately threw the kitchen sink at it, all kinds of meds.”
Rogan said he took monoclonal antibodies, prednisone, a “vitamin drip” and ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug not approved to treat COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have warned against using the drug, saying it may cause serious illness when not used properly.
“Sunday sucked,” Rogan said, adding that he started to feel better on Monday.
By Wednesday, when he announced his positive result to his 13.1 million followers on Instagram, he said he was feeling “great” and “pretty f***ing good.”
His upcoming shows with Dave Chapelle in Nashville and New Orleans have been postponed.
“It is what it is,” he said. “A wonderful, heartfelt thank you to modern medicine for pulling me out of this so quickly and easily.”
This spring, Rogan took heat from health officials for saying young people shouldn’t get a COVID-19 vaccine if they’re healthy. In an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” he said people who are in vulnerable populations or want the vaccine should get inoculated.
He believes it is “for the most part” safe, he said, adding that his parents have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
“But if you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I’ll go no. Are you healthy? 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,” he said.
As his comments reverberated across social media, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, told the “Today” show that Rogan’s comments are flat-out “incorrect.”
“That’s incorrect and the reason why is that you’re talking about yourself in a vacuum — 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,” Fauci said.
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