Episode 1497: Joe Schilling

TL;DR: Aired during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, this episode platforms blanket pandemic denial (“it’s not real, it’s just the flu”) from a Muay Thai fighter with no medical or epidemiological expertise, and Rogan amplifies false claims about testing, masks, and death counts rather than challenging them.

Joe Schilling is a professional kickboxer and MMA fighter. He has no training in virology, epidemiology, or public health. The episode aired June 25, 2020, when the US was averaging tens of thousands of new COVID cases per day and hospitals in the Sun Belt were filling up.

The Core Problem

Schilling repeatedly declares the pandemic is fake while Rogan, with a much larger platform and an obligation to push back, lets it stand or piles on with his own half-baked claims.

Schilling: “This thing is not real, bro… it’s just not real… It is the fucking flu.”

This was a demonstrably false claim in June 2020, and it remained false through the pandemic.

CDC excess deaths data: By the end of 2020 the US had recorded roughly 375,000 excess deaths attributable to COVID-19, far exceeding any flu season on record. CDC MMWR
Infection fatality rate: A meta-analysis published in the Bulletin of the WHO estimated COVID-19’s IFR at roughly 0.5-1.0%, an order of magnitude higher than seasonal influenza (~0.1%). WHO Bulletin (2021)
Hospital strain: By late June 2020, Texas, Arizona, and Florida ICUs were at or near capacity. Texas Tribune coverage

Specific Claims and Fact-Checks

Claim: “Fifty percent of positive tests are false positives”

This is a confusion of test specificity with predictive value, and it was wrong.

PCR test specificity: RT-PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 had specificity well above 99% in real-world use. False positive rates of 50% are not supported by any peer-reviewed data. Cochrane Review (2021)

Claim: Hospitals are financially incentivized to inflate COVID death counts

A persistent 2020 talking point that misrepresented routine Medicare reimbursement.

AP Fact Check: Hospitals received standard add-on payments for COVID-19 inpatient care under the CARES Act; this did not incentivize misclassification of deaths. State health departments, not hospitals, certify cause of death. AP Fact Check (2020)
PolitiFact: Rated the “hospitals inflate COVID deaths for money” claim False. PolitiFact (2020)

Claim: WHO said asymptomatic transmission is rare, so masks/distancing are pointless

This refers to a June 8, 2020 statement by WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove that she walked back the next day.

WHO clarification (June 9, 2020): Asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission is a “major” driver of spread. The original comment was a miscommunication. WHO press briefing

Reliance on Bret Weinstein’s lab-leak commentary

While the lab-leak hypothesis later became a legitimate topic of investigation, in June 2020 Schilling and Rogan cite Bret Weinstein - an evolutionary biologist with no virology training - as if his speculation settles the question. The actual scientific assessment at the time and now remains uncertain. Nature (2021): Investigate origins of pandemic

Joe Rogan’s Role

Rogan does occasionally cite credentialed scientists (he name-drops Peter Hotez), but on the core misinformation he is an enabler rather than a skeptic.

He does not challenge Schilling’s “it’s just the flu” claim with the actual case fatality data that was widely available in June 2020.
He repeats the inflated false-positive rate figure without sourcing it.
He amplifies the hospital-incentive conspiracy theory.
He platforms an MMA fighter as a public-health commentator at the moment listeners were making decisions about masks, gatherings, and risk.

Rogan’s audience in 2020 was already estimated at 11+ million per episode. The asymmetry between his reach and Schilling’s qualifications is the whole problem.

Why It Matters

Real-world harm: Studies have linked exposure to COVID misinformation with lower mask-wearing, lower vaccine uptake, and higher mortality. A 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation study found that belief in at least one piece of COVID misinformation was associated with significantly lower vaccination rates. KFF (2021)
Timing: This episode aired right before the summer 2020 surge that killed tens of thousands of Americans. Telling a massive audience the virus “isn’t real” during that window is not a victimless take.

Bottom Line

A kickboxer telling Joe Rogan’s audience that COVID is fake while Rogan nods along is exactly the dynamic that earned the show its reputation as a misinformation vector during the pandemic. The episode is a textbook example of unqualified guests making medical claims that the host fails to fact-check in real time.