THE OFFSPRING Guitarist NOODLES Opens Up About His COVID-19 Battle: 'Because I Am Vaccinated, I Got Over It Very Quickly'

THE OFFSPRING guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman says that the band canceled its concerts in Denver and Salt Lake City earlier this month after he tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

On Saturday (October 9),Noodles took to his Twitter to write: "I tested positive for Covid on the 27th of last month. I was in Philly with my wife & we were supposed to travel to NYC for a couple of days. I had a slight cold & thought I better get tested before traveling. My wife tested negative, but not me.

"I immediately reached out to management, the band, & crew," he continued. "We canceled the Denver & SLC shows at that time out of an abundance of caution. My positive test led to others getting tested. I'm not going to divulge who got what. So don't ask me for any information about anyone else. If anyone else wants to talk about their health it is up to them. The important thing is everyone isolated until we were safe to be around. Earlier this week everyone on our tour tested negative.

"Most of our tour party never got sick," Noodles said. "My wife who slept next to me while I had it never caught it. I was sick for 2-3 days at most. Runny nose & sore throat. By Wednesday the 29th I was fever free and my symptoms were almost entirely gone.

"Everyone on our tour is vaccinated, thankfully, but I still managed to get it. There's always that risk, especially with the Delta variant. Because I am vaxxed I got over it very quickly and was less likely to spread it to someone else.

"I'm sorry that we had to cancel a couple of shows but we have to do what we can to minimize the risks," he added.

"Stay safe, take care of each other, & get vaccinated. The vaccine might've just saved my life. It certainly made it easier."

Two months ago, longtime THE OFFSPRING drummer Pete Parada announced that was being dropped from the band's current tour after refusing the COVID-19 vaccine for medical reasons.

Pete said a doctor had advised him not to get the shot because he has a rare autoimmune disorder. The musician said he first experienced Guillain-Barré syndrome, where a person's immune system damages their nerves, in childhood and the effects had got "progressively worse over my lifetime". He also revealed that he contracted COVID-19 over a year ago and only had mild symptoms, "so I am confident I'd be able to handle it again", he wrote.

Parada wrote on social media that he's "unable to comply with what is increasingly becoming an industry mandate". As a result, "it has recently been decided that I am unsafe to be around, in the studio and on tour", he said.

Parada added that he had "no negative feelings towards my band". He wrote: "They're doing what they believe is best for them, while I am doing the same."

It is not clear if Parada, who joined the group in 2007, has now left THE OFFSPRING permanently.

Earlier this year, THE OFFSPRING encouraged fans to receive their COVID-19 vaccines by reworking the chorus of its 1994 classic "Come Out And Play" to say "you gotta go get vaccinated." The new version of the song was shared in March on THE OFFSPRING's Instagram, featuring a snippet from the song's music video with the reworked lyrics.

THE OFFSPRING singer Bryan "Dexter" Holland has a Ph.D. in molecular biology and wrote his thesis on microRNA in HIV genomes. The 175-page research paper, titled "Identification of Human MicroRNA-Like Sequences Embedded within the Protein-Encoding Genes of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus", had been published in PLoS One. Holland had received his Ph.D. from University of Southern California in 2017.

THE OFFSPRING's tenth studio album, "Let The Bad Times Roll", arrived in April via Concord Records.