Bruce Dickinson Compares COVID Conspiracy Theorists To Doomsday Preppers

Bruce Dickinson is an expert in many areas but he admits that infectious disease is beyond his purview.

When it comes to COVID-19, the Iron Maiden frontman readily put his trust in experts and says he's healthier today for it. Dickinson recently recovered from a bout with the virus.

He tells Yahoo! Music in a new interview that he is "absolutely fine" with no lingering effects, and it is almost certainly because he is fully-vaccinated.

"My belief is — and I stress, it's a belief— that this proves that I would have been more sick if [I'd] not taken the vaccine," Dickinson said. "I mean, I had both jabs. Everybody I know has had both jabs. And I'm quite happy about it."

He continued, referring to conspiracy theories about the virus and the vaccine: "You know, none of us have started growing extra heads, suddenly wanting sidle up to 5G phones or expressed a willingness to go down on Bill Gates. So, all of these things, I think it's largely a myth!"

COVID has been blamed for more than 4.5 million deaths worldwide. Dickinson, a 63-year-old cancer-survivor, is in a high-risk category. He got the vaccine, then the virus and now he's fine, just like his doctor said he would be.

The experience makes it hard to understand why COVID conspiracy theories are so pervasive, despite so little supporting evidence. Dickinson says there must be something deeper that's causing people to worry about the vaccine or the masks, more than they worry about the deadly virus.

"I think they believe [conspiracy theories] because of their psychological makeup," he said. "They have a need to believe in these things. It's the same as people that are going to sit on top of a mountain every year and wait for the world to end. And the world doesn't end, but do they modify their beliefs? Actually, no. It strengthens them: 'Yep, we were right all along. It is definitely going to end, just not this year. The rest of the world is against us!'"

It may be a frustrating mentality, but Dickinson says people shouldn't worry too much about changing minds that aren't willing to be changed.

"But for the rest of us, I would say, just get vaccinated," he concluded. "And if you do get sick, you won't get that sick. It'll just be like a mild case of the flu."

Dickinson's fully-vaccinated COVID experience is in line with those of other rockers, including Johnny Van Zant, Corey Taylor, Matt Heafy, Sebastian Bach, Rikki Rockett, Paul Stanley and others, who reported flu-like symptoms that lasted a few days and then subsided with no lingering effects.

Iron Maiden's 17th studio album, Senjutsu, comes out on September 3. The band hopes to support the album on tour in 2022.