Ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies, I should say, which are a valid FDA-approved treatment and have proved effective in clinical trials. He’s not winging it with pure snake oil. He’s taking the good stuff too.
Although I’m curious to know how/why he managed to swing an antibody treatment. I thought those were reserved for people who are at high risk of severe illness, e.g., if you’re over 65, immunocompromised, or have some serious comorbidity. How’d Rogan get a hold of it?
And why is he taking a Z-pack, which is an antibiotic and won’t do anything to a virus? All I can think is that he’s also popping hydroxychloroquine since Z-packs were supposed to enhance the benefits of that drug against COVID when it was the miracle cure of choice last year, before ivermectin supplanted it.
I’m glad to say that he seems fully recovered here. Watch, then read on.
Is Rogan vaccinated?
Not that being vaccinated would have prevented him from getting COVID, as Delta has made breakthrough infections more common than they were three months ago. But I’m curious anyway because Rogan has veered repeatedly towards what we might call soft anti-vaxxism. He got in trouble earlier this year when he said that young adults don’t really need to get vaccinated, then walked that comment back and even admitted that he had once had an appointment to get the J&J shot before a scheduling conflict forced him to cancel. Since then he’s lent airtime to ivermectin booster Bret Weinstein. And just two days ago he offered a refund to fans in New York who bought tickets to one of his upcoming shows because city policy requires them to be vaccinated to attend.
“If someone has an ideological or physiological reason for not getting vaccinated, I don’t want to force them to get vaccinated to see a f***ing stupid comedy show,” Rogan said. “And now they say that everybody has to be vaccinated, and I want everybody to know that you can get your money back.”
Not really anti-vax. Just not real pro-vax either. Since he’s loading up on every treatment under the sun, valid and invalid alike, it’d be worth knowing if he took the one prophylactic that would all but guarantee that he didn’t develop a severe case. Did he?
With some soft anti-vaxxers, it’s easy to guess. I’d bet good money that Tucker was vaccinated many months before starting his nightly “just asking questions” segments about the vaccines that never seem to provide answers. But with Rogan, I don’t know. Maybe the Weinsteins of the world got in his head and convinced him that the shot wasn’t necessary because a deworming drug was standing by for him if he needed it.
It’s strange that some people who believe they don’t need vaccination because of their general good health end up scrambling for treatments once they’re infected, no? I’m not saying that’s Rogan — maybe he’s vaxxed — but the anti-vaxxers who’ve shunned Pfizer and Moderna because they refuse to put strange substances in their bodies and then end up ODing on the horse version of ivermectin in their urgency to avert severe COVID are an interesting breed. In many ways.
Joe Rogan getting COVID and then shaking it off after a few days isn’t really “news” so let’s try to redeem this post with some actually important information about the pandemic. With Delta running wild, are parents getting cold feet about sending kids back to class this fall?
Before Delta alerted the CDC to the fact that vaccinated people could now infect others, sending children back to class this year full-time was a 58 percent proposition. Now just 43 percent support it; a majority would prefer either hybrid instruction or fully remote learning despite the warnings from groups like the AAP that learning in person is crucial for kids’ development. Black and Hispanic parents were far less likely than whites in this survey to support in-class learning even though remote learning was more of a hassle for them last year due to lower rates of Internet connectivity and despite the fact that they’re more likely to work jobs that can’t be done from home. It’s pure fear, I assume, that’s leading them to want their kids out of school: They know that COVID has hit black and Latino communities disproportionately hard and they don’t want to put their children at any extra risk.
Which is understandable. But given the low rates of infection in schools last year, it may be that kids are at higher risk of getting Delta outside the classroom than they are inside it.
A lot of children are going to end up falling behind despite the best intentions of their parents. Hurry up, FDA.
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