Aussie comedian Jon-Bernard Kairouz has correctly predicted NSW Covid case numbers for a third day running.
The Sydney-based former Home And Away extra pulled off a trifecta of accurate “calculations” on Friday with his prediction of 97 new cases for the state.
Kairouz claimed “simple maths” allowed him to calculate Wednesday’s 97 new cases and Thursday’s 65 cases before they were officially announced by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
In traditional style, he uploaded his prediction to TikTok Thursday evening, and shortly after 11am on Friday, Ms Berejiklian confirmed he was once again right.
In the clip, he pondered over a whiteboard covered in bogus calculations and the words “diameter of Fairfield” written across the top – the Sydney suburb that has had a huge spike in case numbers.
After joining two shapes together with a straight line and adding a number to one of the “equations”, he drew the number 91 on the board.
A brief moment later he edited the number to 97.
“No, 97. There’ll be 97 new cases tomorrow. Stitch this if I’m right,” he told his audience.
Kairouz’s followers seem to have developed a level of confidence in his predictions in recent days, with those questioning his accuracy few and far between.
“It’s the fact this guy is actually right. Thanks for telling us in advance,” one wrote in a comment.
He was so confident in his prediction that he told one viewer he would “quit” if he turned out to be wrong.
Others argued he should also be able to calculate when the lockdown would be over, but it seemed he was not quite up to that level of challenge.
He has remained tight-lipped on how he actually knows the case numbers ahead of time, however it has been widely speculated someone at NSW Health has been leaking them to him.
In an appeareance on Studio 10 Friday morning, he insisted his correct guesses were the result of him crunching ever-changing data issued by health officials.
“It’s just cold, hard maths. You know, I show my working-out on the board for everyone to see, and it’s as simple as that,” he claimed.
“Me and my brothers work hard and we take everything into account. The data is changing every day. And as I said, it’s just the Kairouz probability theorem.”
He accused people who doubted his claims of being drivers of a “conspiracy campaign” against him.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘Oh, he’s related to Gladys, he must be her nephew or related to her new Lebanese boyfriend’. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. People lie and numbers don’t,” he said.
Of the 97 new cases, 29 people were in the community while infectious, Ms Berejiklian told reporters.
Premier quizzed over potential leak
Ms Berejiklian was asked about the bizarre accuracy of Kairouz’s TikTok videos in Friday’s press conference but couldn’t give any further insight about his connections.
“All we can do is focus on it job at hand, and at the moment, a lot of people have alleged to have various bits of information and advice, and is welcome,” she responded.
“We are in a democracy. What is important to us as a team is a focus on what is necessary and that is to let a stake in the most challenging at times and I cannot stress that enough.”