Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has tested positive for COVID-19. The singer revealed his diagnosis and said he tested positive just days after canceling two dates of his spoken word tour in the UK, which he rescheduled for October after a member of his household also contracted coronavirus.
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Dickinson said he took a test after he started feeling symptoms of a cold, which came back positive. “I thought, ‘Oh well, shit,'” he said in a recent interview. “I was kind of sneezing a bit. For a couple of days, I felt a bit groggy, kind of like the flu, and that was it. And I’m 63 years old. I’ve pretty much got no doubt that had I not had the vaccine, I could be in serious trouble.”
The band’s 17th album Senjutsu (BMG), out Sept. 3, was produced by the band’s longtime producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Maiden bassist Steve Harris.
Dickinson is one of many artists who recently contracted COVID, despite being vaccinated. Reba McEntire recently shared that she and her boyfriend Max Linn both tested positive, after getting the vaccine. Tesla guitarist Frank Hannon also suffered a similar fate, post-vaccination, and said he had a 102-degree fever and shakes. Other artists who have contracted COVID-19 include Jessica Simpson, Lynryd Skynyrd’s guitarist Rickey Medlocke, Sebastian Bach, Poison’s Rikki Rocket, Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, Wiz Khalifa, and more.
Though he tested positive, Dickinson, who also had his hip replaced during the lockdown in 2020, said he doesn’t believe mandatory vaccination should be required for fans to attend concerts, calling it “a personal choice” but hopes more people will decide to get the vaccine.
“Personally, I think people are just very badly advised if they don’t go and get themselves double jabbed as quickly as possible, not for the reasons of going into concerts, but for their own health,” said Dickinson. “Even if you’ve had a double jab, you can still get COVID, and therefore you can spread it to other people who might not have been vaccinated and they might get very sick and die.”
He added, “Now you cannot legislate against mortality. There are many things in this world that kill people and they’re not illegal but are unfortunate. Cancer kills a lot of people. Heart attacks kill a lot of people. Obesity kills a lot of people. Malaria kills a shitload of people every year. At some point, we have to just go, ‘We’re probably going to have to live with this. And if we’re going to live with it, then you have your vaccination.’”
