Claims Gladys Berejiklian's office 'set traps' for TikTok comedian who predicted NSW Covid cases five days in a row - until he got today's number badly wrong when the 'leak was plugged'
- TikTok comedian's run of correct predictions of NSW case numbers is halted
- Jon-Bernard Kairouz correctly guessed the state's Covid figures for five days
- NSW Health Minister said access to the numbers had been tightened
- He denied a 'sting' had been used to find the source of Kariouz's information
- Kairouz insisted he was using 'simple maths', despite new theories on his ruse
A TikTok comedian's run of predicting NSW's daily new Covid cases has come to a dramatic halt amid claims NSW Health 'set a trap' for him.
Jon-Bernard Kairouz became an overnight celebrity by predicting how many coronavirus cases Sydney's outbreak would have for five days in a row.
But the 98 cases announced by the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday differed from Kairouz's prediction made on Sunday night of 109 cases.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard was asked whether NSW Health used a 'sting' to foil Mr Kairouz and make him predict the wrong number.
'Absolutely not,' he responded. 'There was no sting, we are not chasing people, but the figures will [now] be distributed on a needs to know basis.'
Jon-Bernard Kairouz (pictured on The Project), who refers to himself as the People's Premier, has correctly predicted the state's soaring case numbers for the past five consecutive days.
The change reflected a growing concern within the government that Mr Kairouz's videos posed a threat to public health.
Mr Kairouz claims he predicts the numbers using complex maths and his own equation, but he is widely believed to have a source with access to the data - which he denies.
Mr Hazzard denied the issue was discussed at cabinet level, but said he spoke to the heath department about the need to restrict access to cases data.
'Clearly someone somebody in the system was feeling the need to disclose those figures to somebody who was not an appropriate person to be making commentary about it,' he said.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Health Minister Brad Hazzard at the daily Covid-19 update on Monday, July 19. Mr Hazzard denied a sting operation had been conducted within NSW Health to find the source of Jon-Bernard Kairouz's daily cases information
Entertainment reporter Peter Ford earlier told Seven's The Morning Show that a 'witch hunt' was conducted inside NSW Health to find the leak.
'My information is... that they set traps for him, and they may have borne fruit,' he said. 'They may have now found the person that it is.'
Mr Kairouz continued to insist his maths skills and a mysterious algorithm were behind his accuracy in predicting the daily numbers.
'I have received calls from NSW Health saying 'who is your source' and what not, and I maintain that it comes down to hard and fast maths,' he told Weekend Sunrise.
The prankster claimed on Channel Ten's The Project on Sunday he and his brothers calculate the figures by using the 'Kairouz probability algorithm'.
Jon-Bernard Kairouz (pictured on the phone), who refers to himself as the People's Premier, has correctly predicted the state's soaring case numbers for the past five consecutive days
When pressed by the show's host Jan Fran about how he does it, Kairouz said it just comes down to simple maths.
'We are quite lucky as not all complex calculus has one given solution, but we've been lucky to get five in a row and we could possibly get Michael Jordan numbers tomorrow,' Kairouz said, referring to the US basketball great's six championships.
In his viral social media clips, Kairouz is often seen drawing nonsense diagrams, statistics, and equations on a whiteboard before giving his eerily accurate predictions.
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'The diagrams are called homoeomorphic irreducible trees and that is combined with all the other variables we include such as the diameter of Fairfeild and the circumference of southwest Sydney,' he told the panel while holding a gold wrestling belt over his shoulder.
'We also take into account the infectious community cases and then we can deduce a concrete figure we are happy to push out to the public.'
When pressed by the show's host Jan Fran about how he does it, Kairouz (pictured) said it just comes down to simple maths
Fellow comedian and host Tommy Little admitted he's a big fan of the young man's shtick.
'I love the belt and I love the People's Premier,' Little said.
'I think we can all agree you are full of s**t on this maths thing but to be honest I don't care.'
Two days earlier Gladys Berejiklian was questioned at a press conference on whether NSW Health had a leak and if she was concerned.
Pictured: Jon-Bernard Kairouz
'I know at the moment a lot of people alleged to have various bits of information and that's welcome, we are in democracy,' she said.
But as the speculation grows about how he's able to come up with his seemingly magic numbers, Kairouz said he's just trying to enjoy the process and his new-found notoriety.
'I'm having a ball,' he said.
'I've been creating content on Instagram and TikTok for just about a year now and to grow exponentially on the social platforms has been really fun and it's been a whirlwind of a week.'
Kairouz had been making his daily prediction around 10.30pm most nights.
NSW Health officials collate each day's number of positive cases up until 8pm - giving him two-and-a-half hours to hear from any source.
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