Joe Rogan: We Can’t Sustain a Nation-Wide Quarantine

Well, what I'm really hoping, really hoping is that some sort of a rapid test for COVID, not even like the 15 minute one that we came, because I heard something about some saliva test that they're trying to develop that's extremely rapid. That would be amazing if you could just test people right before they come into your restaurant and no one has to worry about shit. Yeah. You know, we're gearing up for what the new world is going to be. Yeah. You know, everybody gets their temperature taken. But that's not good enough. See, the temperature thing is not good enough because if you're asymptomatic, but you're still spreading it, like why are we pretending? That's avoiding science. We need to find out whether or not people actually have it. This temperature thing is just whether or not you're sick. I know. It doesn't mean you don't have it if your temperature is low. It's real weird. And that's what's going to be mandated on us. I mean, there's a certain series of things that we're going to have to do. And it's, you know, nobody knows for sure whatnot, but, you know, who knows? Well, at a certain point in time, I think we really need to make a decision as to whether or not we're just going to allow this to take over our world or whether we're going to do what we can do to protect the sick. You know, if you're in contact with people that have a weakened immune system, you're going to have to have a different life than someone who doesn't. If you're a person with a weakened immune system, you're going to have a different life. If you're an older person, you're going to have to have a different life. But for the vast majority of us, we're going to have to give people the freedom to make choices and to do what they want to do with their own life and their own health. If you're giving people the freedom to eat terrible food, the heart attacks are killing people as quickly as anything, right? Cancer is killing people as quick as anything. Cigarettes kill a half a million people a year. There's no government mandate that's trying to get people to stop smoking cigarettes. In fact, there's not a single word ever spoken about it in presidential campaigns, in governor campaigns, congressional campaigns. No one's out there trying to get people to stop smoking cigarettes. But yet it's killing a half a million people every year in this country alone. We're so strange, and I understand cigarettes is a choice, and infectious diseases are not. We're worried about protecting people who have these compromised immune systems. But it's not most people. The vast majority of people that are going to get this are not, it's not going to be fatal. We have to figure out how to protect the people that are high risk. To quarantine the whole country, it just seems like maybe it was a good move to do initially, but we can't sustain that. So now we have to figure out how to move forward. There's all these protests all over California now, I'm sure you've seen it, in Orange County and Huntington Beach. There's counties in Northern California that are like, we're opening up everything. We're going to open up restaurants, we're opening up bars. We're going back to business. Texas is basically back to business. Montana is doing the same. They have a modified approach to dealing this, and we're going to have to figure it out in a long way. But I just don't want us to lose, I don't want us to lose any people, but I certainly don't want us to lose restaurants either. I don't want us to lose bars. I don't want us to lose comedy clubs. I don't want us to lose small businesses that are crippled by this. What is the world that you think it'll look like? Here we are. You talk about a comedy club. How do you even, I don't know, six feet apart, and then there's a certain energy in the room. What type of world do we have in front of us the way it's slated right now? We don't even know. Right. What kind of government overreach are we going to have where people are going to come in and police this? There's no real science to that either, by the way. They have a bunch of people jammed into a room whether they're six feet apart or not. You're touching things. You're breathing on each other. I think you should allow people to do what they want to do. If it gets to a certain point where we have some sort of a viable cure or a treatment, like there's this, what is that stuff called again? This antiviral medication that Dr. Fauci has been remdesivir. Remdesivir. Yeah, remdesivir. I mean, boy, we're hoping for that, right? We're hoping that there's some sort of a treatment where it's not a death sentence for people even with immune compromised systems. So I mean, I just feel so bad for people like you and for all the people out there that own these amazing restaurants that it's one of my favorite things to do is to go to a nice restaurant and it would be- And for me to go to work. Yes. It'd be such a shame if because of this pandemic, all that goes away. I mean, and what kind of a buildup are we looking at to try to bring those places back? Yeah. I don't have the answers. For me- What can be done if you had a magic wand? What would you do? If someone said, Adam, fix this. It's difficult for me because I hear your point, but I have just such great empathy for people that would get sick just by someone else's negligence. And for me, it's a bit of a tussle here because I want to just, on one hand, you have an economy that is just tanking and businesses that are going to go out of business. But then on the other hand, you have people that are defenseless, some people that look healthy, fantastic. Like a friend, 45 years old goes in. Then they're on a ventilator and it's just like, you can't give the answers. I don't know if I'm even prepared to give you a summary on it. I haven't formulated it in my brain the way that I've just been coping. And that's all I'm just trying to hold on. And for me, I'm just trying to put faith in the fact that people have to eat and people like you really want to have restaurants around. And in the end, we're going to find our way. And the only way I know to get through this is just to head down and work and be really helpful to people that are in need and be there for the community and feed them. But outside of that, I don't know. God, if I had the... I don't know how to answer you. Yeah, nobody knows. That's what's crazy. Even if I was in control, because I don't want people to die unnecessarily by people's negligence, but on the other hand, I just don't know. Well, it's such an incredibly messy situation with no clear cut answer because of the fact that you do have these people that are seemingly healthy, 35-year-old people that are getting it and dying, and it doesn't make sense. And then you have... You hear, oh, guy, World War II veteran, 102 years old, beats COVID. You see that too. So it's like, how do I think about this? Do I think about it like the common cold? Do I think about it like the flu? Do I think about it like some new thing? I mean, everyone is unsure, and that's what makes it so strange. I think the key is for us to get the vaccine as quick as possible so that we can get it, at least have some type of defense for this. And I don't know how long that's going to take people, like are talking a ridiculous amount of time, but... Well, it takes a long time to develop a vaccine correctly. I mean, they're going through a bunch of trials right now. We've talked about it before. There's several ongoing, including ones with human beings that they're testing the vaccine on. There was a woman in Seattle. She was the first ever person to receive this coronavirus vaccine. They did a story on her and they're monitoring her. Because that's the only way for us to be sure. Yes. Because responsibly, even just people coming into the restaurant, like don't get me wrong, I want the business and I want to have a bar that's bustling. I want to have a vibe. I want people to be happy, well fed, enjoy themselves. Right. Not be nervous. Not be nervous. Someone coughs and everybody freaks out. Yeah, servers have masks on. So now all of a sudden we can't have music because people can't hear the server and there's... Yeah. Yeah, nobody used to give a shit. They would shake hands. It's weird. You see people shake hands in a movie now and you're like, oh, what are you doing? I know. You can just get twitchy about it. Yeah. It happens so quickly too. That's what's weird. The whole world shifted so rapidly. People like you are the ones, obviously the people that get hit the hardest are the people, A, with the disease and B, that work with people with the disease. The people that have the disease and then the first responders and hospital workers and all the different people that work to help those people. They're the most devastated by this. But there are so many small businesses right now that are in this position that you're in where there's so much uncertainty. The key is going to be the rent game. I mean, at the end of the day for a lot of these business, that's the looming factor is being on the hook. Not only just to make rent the following month with a compromised 50% occupancy, if you can imagine, if you're paying rent for that, you have a model in terms of how much income. You brought out the possibility of instead of forgiving the rent, taking the rent and putting it on the back end of it. Right now, essentially for the three months, you don't need to pay the rent, but you'll be at on three months to the end of your lease. That for me makes sense. But for us to turn around and work at 10, 15% capacity and then all of a sudden get a bill for six figures say, okay, you owe this. So who's going to film my shoes? So if I can't make it at my location, who's going to come along and take on that rent? Anyway, nobody's going to do it. So they're stuck. We're stuck. What are we going to do?