Joe Rogan Experience podcast producer tests positive for COVID-19

Jamie Vernon, the producer for the extremely popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, has tested positive for COVID-19.

So far, Rogan himself has tested negative for the virus, despite the fact that he works in close proximity with Vernon.

This is pertinent news for fight fans, of course, as Rogan is the foremost commentator for the UFC. Thankfully, Rogan isn’t scheduled to commentate this Saturday’s UFC 254 card, so it doesn’t look this will have any implication on his broadcast duties—even if he does wind up testing positive.

Unfortunately, however, this does mean the Joe Rogan Experience podcast will be off the air for at least a week. Rogan explained the situation on social media.

“So we have a situation: Young Jamie Vernon tested positive today for COVID-19,” Rogan said (via MMA Mania). “I tested negative. The rest of the staff tested negative. But Jamie tested positive. He thought maybe he had a sinus infection or allergies, but he has COVID.

“We were off last week, the episodes we aired we had previously recorded so I hadn’t seen Jamie in 9 days,” Rogan added. “And he said somewhere around this past Thursday he felt like s**t for a day, and then started feeling better on Friday, and by Saturday he was mostly over it. Today he says he feels 90%-ish over it. But it’s COVID so we cancelled all the shows. We’re happy he had a mild case but we cancelled all the shows.

“I’m keeping away from everybody and testing myself and testing the staff every day until we’re in the clear,” Rogan continued. “There’s nothing we can do. So we’re cancelling all podcasts this week and I won’t know when we can do them again until we can get a clear from the doctor. I think it has to be 10 days and 3 negative test results in a row. So that takes us deep into next week.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do, we could do some shows remotely, we could do some shows with a substitute producer which I really don’t want to do. But … we’ll figure it out and I’m happy Jamie has a mild case and I’m happy he’s feeling better but obviously this is a f**ked up situation.

“My apologies to the guests, my apologies to all of you,” Rogan concluded. “It’s out of my hands, obviously. And I’ll keep you posted.”

Stay tuned for more updates on this situation as new details emerge.