Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1762 - Josh Szeps
Uploaded: 2022-01-12T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1762 - Josh Szeps' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-01-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1762 - Josh Szeps' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-01-12. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1762 - Josh Szeps

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
Hello, Josh.
Hi, mate.
I'm free.
Good to see you, Matt.
They let me out.
They let you out of your prison colony.
Oh, my goodness.
Isn't it strange how Australia's reverting back to what it originally was?
Supposedly.
But now, I mean, Omicron's going crazy there now.
Now we're open.
But it's a cold.
Omicron is a cold.
Yeah, it is now.
It's not the Delta.
It's not this dangerous one.
Well, we're embracing it wholeheartedly.
We've got, like, I mean, we can talk about all the numbers and stuff.
But, like, this whole, like, kind of theory that Australia has become a prison
colony.
And there were definite excesses over the past couple of years in the way that
some Australian states dealt with it.
But since the 1st of November, when the biggest state, New South Wales, where
Sydney is, where I'm from, basically was like,
all right, we're open, we're letting people, you know, come in from abroad, we're
not going to have quarantine anymore, you're allowed to do whatever you want,
we're not going to have any restrictions and stuff.
It's been, I mean, I was looking at the numbers this morning, just before I
came here, we've got, there were like 1,200 new cases a day in November, and
now there are between 60 to 100,000 cases a day in a state of 8 million people.
So it's about...
100,000 cases a day is wild.
Yeah, so it's about the equivalent of, if I adjusted it for the U.S. population,
it's about 800,000 to 1.3 million a day in the U.S., which is about, I think,
what it is.
Probably right now.
But for Australians, it's like, what the hell is going on?
But it's a different, completely different virus.
If it was that many of the Delta, it would be very scary, because a lot of
people would be dying.
Well, also, I mean, timing-wise, like, a lot of people are vaccinated, you know,
I mean, like, New South Wales is 95-plus percent vaccinated.
But the vaccine isn't working for Omicron.
Well, for hospitalization and death it is, it's not...
Well, no, no, no, hospitalization and death, people aren't getting hospitalized
and dying off Omicron.
It's not the same disease.
It's not the same, but it would still be a very different situation if no one
in Australia was vaccinated than if 95% of them were vaccinated.
If it's an escape variant, which is what some biologists believe, then no,
because it doesn't have the protection.
The vaccine doesn't provide the protection from this particular variant.
Yes, it does.
From Omicron?
Yeah, yeah.
In what way?
In terms of hospitalization and death, it does.
Hospitalization and death is not an issue with this variant.
It's not causing people to be hospitalized and dying on large scale.
Well, not the same.
It is, though.
It is.
I mean, like, if it's half as...
The way the epidemiologists put it is, like, if it's half as bad, but 10 times
as many people get it, then you've still got five times as many people in
hospital.
It depends on what you're talking about.
If you're talking about people with massive comorbidities, yeah.
Well, yeah.
But any cold could do that to people.
Yeah, I mean, part of that...
So are we going to vaccinate for colds?
Because that's literally what this is.
It's like, my friend who just got it had no idea he had it.
He had a scratchy throat, and then he got tested.
Turned out that he had it, and he said, I felt nothing the next day.
He goes, but I'm still positive for a couple days, and I have to lay low.
But this is not like the Delta.
This is not even like the original version.
Even the vast majority of people who got Delta didn't die from it and weren't
hospitalized from it.
I mean, it's all a numbers game, isn't it?
Yes, it is, but it's a rougher disease.
It's quite a much rougher experience for people that got the Delta.
I mean, the problem is, you don't need something to be very deadly.
If 330 million people all get it, then...
I want to know if this is true, because I was reading this paper.
They were saying that the vaccine is not protecting people from Omicron.
See what you can find on that.
This biologist was calling it an escape variant,
and he was saying, essentially, it's a completely different strain.
I mean, it depends whether you're talking about testing positive on a test,
which is part of the problem, right?
Or whether you're talking about hospitalization and death.
The vaccines are effective against Omicron in preventing hospitalization and
death.
But stop, because Omicron is not causing hospitalization and death.
It was like two months in in America,
and they still hadn't isolated a single death that they could attribute to Omicron.
That's just early days.
Two months.
Two months is thousands and thousands and thousands of people that are infected.
Most of the people in hospital in Australia are Omicron.
Omicron makes Biden's vaccine mandates obsolete.
There's no evidence so far that vaccines are reducing infections from the fast-spreading
variant.
Infections, not hospitalizations and death.
But I don't think it's effective in that way either,
because it's not causing hospitalizations and deaths in the same way.
It is.
Not in the same way, yeah, it is, it is.
No, no, listen, one of the things that they've isolated is that there's still a
significant number of people in this country that have the Delta.
Yes.
Because Delta didn't just go away.
No, that's true.
And they're saying that most, by far, of the hospitalizations and the deaths
for sure are from that variant.
That'll change.
I don't know if you're right.
Well, I mean-
What are you, a fucking soothsayer?
I'm a journalist, mate.
I mean, part of the hassle of it is that it doesn't, I mean, for most of us, if
you're not very old and you're not very fat and you don't have a comorbidity,
then the hassle of this whole thing that's going on at the moment with Omicron
is all the, do I have to isolate?
Am I going to be able to cross a border?
I mean, I've been traveling for the past month from Australia.
I was released from our prison aisle as soon as we could go.
I was like, I'm out of here.
Have you thought about escaping forever?
Because you used to live over here.
Yeah, I lived more of my life in the States, my adult life, than I did in
Australia.
When you went back to go on TV, I was kind of sad.
I was like, ah.
I honestly feel, like, so warm towards you, and I feel so, it's so nice to be.
I did this show six times when you were in LA, between, like, 2014 and probably
2017.
So I was living in New York and working on HuffPost Live.
Yeah.
And went to Australia, had twins, nightmare of, like, babies and work, and then
the pandemic hits,
and, like, you know, kind of a good time to not be able to leave the country,
because how much fun travel can you do when you've got two screaming babies
next to you anyway?
But as soon as the borders opened and the state government was like, you're not
going to have to spend two weeks in a quarantine hotel when you come back into
the country anymore, we left.
What is the state in Australia that has the most ridiculous rules?
Western Australia.
Yeah.
So they have rules where you can't even go to work now, right?
Unless you're vaccinated.
Oh, so there are a couple of things that could be perceived as crazy.
One is, like, different rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
Yes.
But the other is also just, like, being a hermit kingdom.
I mean—
Is that what it is out there?
Well, so Western Australia—
I should probably put—
I'll backtrack and I can give some context to this in a sec, but just to finish
my thought about, like, jumping across borders.
So I've been going to—I was in Europe and I sent my partner, Sean, and our
kids to his parents in New England to see the grandparents because, you know,
the grandparents haven't seen them in two years.
You know, it's the big pandemic reunion.
And I was like, I've got to do a little bit more work in Sydney.
So you take the kids by yourself.
Thank you, Sean.
I'll go to Europe and meet up with some old mates and some family in Europe.
And this is, like, in sort of September, October, so sort of pre-Omicron.
And I'm like, it's going to be sweet.
Pandemic's basically over.
The Delta wave has subsided.
I'm being laid out of the box.
We're going to go and have fun.
I'm booking, like, nine-hour train rides from France to Switzerland.
I'm hitting up my mate in Rome.
We're going to go to Sicily.
We're going to do all this stuff.
And then Omicron just starts coming.
And I've spent, like, the past four weeks, I feel like Indiana Jones with a
burning bridge.
And I'm, like, running across it.
And the bridge is just falling apart.
It's like the borders are clanging close behind me.
Oh, my God.
And I'm just, like, new rules, new testing.
Do I need an antigen test to get into Switzerland?
Do I need a new piece of paper to say that I haven't been a close contact?
Do I need this?
Do I need that?
And all this stuff.
It's been, like, then the final night before coming here to the States.
And you know you need a negative test to come into the United States.
They won't let you board the plane unless you have a test one day before.
Do you have to have a test when you land or you have to – oh, one day before.
Yeah, you can't get on the plane to even come here.
One day before is kind of funny, though, because you could easily be positive
and get on that plane.
Well, true.
But, I mean, it's also a pain in the ass because, like, it used to be three
days before.
And then Biden was, like, we've got to really crack down on this and make it
one day before.
Well, that's way more logical.
We've got a million cases a day in America anyway.
Like, just let me in.
I promise I'll isolate.
Like, I'm not going to infect anybody.
But – so I find myself in Milan and it's my last night and this is just
before Christmas.
And my kids and my partner and my in-laws and everybody are all preparing for
Christmas in New Hampshire.
It's going to be beautiful, snowy.
The kids haven't had Christmas with their grandparents for three years.
And I get to this little hotel in Milan the night before I need to do the test
and fly out to Australia.
And the guy at reception is like –
Oh, no.
He's like –
Like, literally, like –
Oh, Jesus Christ.
As I hand him my passport, he's like – all over my passport, hands it back to
me.
And so I get into my room and I'm like, all right, what will be will be.
I mean, you know, I can't control this.
And then right outside my door, I just hear him going – he's sitting, sitting
in the hallway right outside my door as I'm trying to go to sleep.
And it becomes like – I mean, this dude's got COVID.
Like, this – he has some serious respiratory –
Did you ask him?
No.
I didn't want to be anywhere near him.
I would ask him.
What are you doing, man?
What are you doing?
Go home.
What are you – absolutely.
Do you have COVID, sir?
So the whole night I'm hearing – and, like, it's even getting me anxious.
It's not about me catching it, but for his well-being.
Because, like, he starts doing that, like, dry, retching kind of heaving.
Like, you can hear his lungs.
Jesus Christ, and he's outwork.
Like, well, that's – and it's, like, one in the morning, so I open the window.
It's, like, minus seven degrees Celsius.
Like, you know, 15 degrees or something Fahrenheit.
I open the windows of my room and turn the heater up to about 110 degrees and
just lie with my face, like –
Trying to get some air.
Like, snowflakes coming in.
I'm just, like, I don't care about really catching it that much, but I do care
about – I do care about not getting the test.
So the next day when I get the test, I'm, like, oh, my God.
Have you had COVID at all?
No, I haven't.
Really?
Interesting.
Well, Australia – I mean, the weird thing about Australia has been – what
people don't understand when they think,
what the hell is going on in Australia, when they look at those videos of, like,
you know,
people being locked up in detention centers for two weeks ju