The Chaser Report - COVID-atouille

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Another pandemic? Aww rats! I'm sure Charles and Dom will treat this without any of the medical sensationalism and scaremongering that everyone else seems to be doing.BUY TICKETS TO CHASER REPORT LIVE: https://events.humanitix.com/the-chaser-report-live-and-arty---Listen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, you and I are in different locations as we record this. Yes. You're in the office. I'm in a different office. We are in different post codes as we speak.

And there's a good reason for this. Yes. It's a medical precaution because I don't want to say an even worse pandemic than COVID because I don't want to alarm people. No, no. But I'm not going near anybody. who might have been near rats recently. Not just rats, cruise line participants.

Either rats and or, I mean, I've always wanted to stay away from the kind of people who went on cruises, Charles. To be fair to me, but no. We're talking hantavirus. Actually, the inner west of Sydney will be pretty safe from this outbreak because no one interacts with people who go on cruises in the inner west. No, we wouldn't. No.

A jaunt on the harbour, perhaps, but not anything declass. they're like a cruise. Hey, let's just have some ads because, you know, bills and stuff. Yeah.

So, Dom, do you think maybe this episode is pointless because everyone has died by the time we publish it? Do you think this is?

We should be clear. This could be the last episode you over here. This is probably, yeah. We're recording this before our budget episode. Let's be really clear.

So we don't know what's happened with the boat that news.com. That are you have so sensitively called the rat ship as we speak. I don't know what's going to happen with that. Yes. And so it's quite possible that it will have already stormed the mainland by the time you hear this.

This could be the last podcast. I think, can I just be honest? In the series. Dom, and let's take a bit of a step back here because I think we're sort of getting ahead of ourselves. First of all, I think the rat chip thing is itself spin, right? Really? Yes. Because the thing that happened.

So this is about that cruise that's gone all around the world. And there was a couple who had been in Argentina that had gone into places where handivirus was endemic. and there's lots of rats and things like that. They'd hopped on the boat, and then they'd sailed literally to every port in the world, it would seem. They went from South America to Africa, up to Europe, around. Somehow they got to Singapore, at least, you know, somebody hopped off in Singapore or something. And the point is that everyone keeps dying.

So that couple died, and then five people who had gotten off the boat early all turned out to have hand a virus, and it's a disaster. And the reason why everyone's saying, oh, it's the... it must be the rat boat, is because hantavirus is transmitted traditionally by rats, right? Like, that's where it sort of transmits and it gets into the urine and then into your, into, and that's how humans catch a thing. Are we becoming this sort of podcast that shames rats now, Charles? No, what I'm saying is this has nothing to do with rats because fairly early on in this crisis, because I've been, I'm a big fan of pandemics, right? Like I did very well out of Scott Morrison's little handouts.

You did actually. We had all those interns. Yeah. Thanks to the, thanks to the scomo large, yes. We could get them back. We had, we had a great time. You know, our numbers went up because nobody had anything better to do. You know.

Yeah. Yeah. So I love a good pandemic. So I've been sort of rooting for the rats. But fairly early on when this handobirus, they send on board people to look for the rats, to get rid of the rats, essentially. Right. What a job. Because originally they went, okay, what we'll do is we'll just contain everyone on this boat.

We'll just get rid of the rats and then they can sort of have their hand of virus and eventually little Peter out. Right. They found no rats. And these were professional rat searchers, right? There were no rats on board. This is not. And this is where it gets sort of a little bit alarming, right, which is if it wasn't rats, if it wasn't people accidentally drinking rat urine, which is essentially the way you get hantavirus up until now.

Is it really? Rat urine? Yes, it's rat urine. Look, just as a sidebar, what am I missing about why you drink rat urine? Is it a delicacy? No. Is it an ingredient in certain cocktails? You don't intentionally drink it.

It slips into your food chain because... I thought it was sort of an organic... No, because the rats hang out in the kitchen. And then it's a bit like the episode of Rattatooie. So I was just going to say, you know, like the movie Rattatooie. So Rattahooie is actually dangerous propaganda propaganda for the hantavirus. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Exactly. It makes you laugh. Of the rats in your kitchen. No, no, no, no. No. No. Okay. Anyway, so the point is there were no rats.

This is clearly human to human transmission. The virus has mutated and it can now, it would seem, rather easily, transmit between humans. And the reason why we say rather easily, with that sort of alarming tone, is Australia in the last sort of 96 hours has completely changed its approach, right? So originally the plan was, okay, we'll bring. the Australian, there's four Australians on the boat, we'll bring them back, put them in Westmead, isolate them for three weeks. Everyone who deals with them can be dressed in those alarming, looking, you know, biohazard suits. Looking like a radiation seat. And it'll all be fine, right?

And then they went, oh, hang on. Two more, was it Americans? Were they Americans? Yeah, a French women, an American tested positive. This is on Monday. This is like literally a couple of days ago, a few days ago, right? They, um, for hantavirus, right? And so they went, hang on, hang on, this really is very transmissible. It's very contagious. This is sort of not something where it's like, oh, somebody drank some urine, you know, let's, which we're not judging.

We're not judging lifestyle choices, but it can mean long quarantine. So, yeah, I'm looking at this child. So the point is, now Australia has gone, okay, we're going to have to send them to Perth, which is like, that is a pretty bad. Like, when you're sending cruise line passengers, I mean, I don't like cruise line passengers,

but Perth, come on. And it's not just Perth, Charles. It's the Bullsbrook National Resilience Centre, which, did you know we had this? There are three national resilient centres with like 500 beds in each of them for future pandemic. So we've actually set up. Oh, that's good. But Charles, you know, so it's a 42 day at Bullsbrook.

I tell you what, the staff at that facility must be going, oh, thank God we've got something to do. But do you be so busy being resilient. But they've had 500 beds, no one to, no pandemic. me gone. But, Charlie, have you not seen the latest twist in this? What? They can't.

They're not going to Perth anymore. They're not going to Perth? First, no. They've been taken to the Netherlands. Oh, that's all right. That's nice. Yeah, so it's a long way away. So they're going to the Netherlands.

I'm not entirely sure why, but they've been taken off the boat. I don't know, to be honest. So it was the Australians ordered a flight from Tenerife to Eindhoven in the Netherlands. It had several Australian passengers, a Kiwi and a POM. Yeah. This sounds like a joke. I know. Yeah.

Several Australians are Kiway and British Russians you walked into. There weren't quite enough parachutes. Ironhoven. Yeah, exactly. So they weren't quite enough P2 masks. And then they'll come back to Australia. I'm not sure for how long they'll be in the Netherlands. Oh, no, two days, two days in the Netherlands.

Right. That's probably just to stock up on, you know, some gullums to get you through. Oh, yeah. Actually, that. Because if they're going to be in isolation. That would be so fine. Let them have, let them have edibles. Yeah, exactly.

Possibly even... If you're going to die, at least die stoned. But, Charles, get this. So they're flying straight back to Bullsbrook National Resilience Center, which looks... I mean, it looks like a prison slash factory, but it's a resilient center. So it's fine.

It does sound like... You know, one of those pieces of spin that you hear in dystopian novels, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, it's... Oh, we'll send them to the resilience. It's not reeducation, Charles. It's resilience. But here's the thing, okay?

that the crew, the flight crew, that will also have to join them for quarantine reasons. So they'll fly back on the charter flight. What a sucky job. Imagine, I know it's hard to find a gig in 2026, but that's a crap gig. That's a crap gig. Do you get paid while you're in isolation?

Surely. And you get danger pay. They're in the biosuits. Yeah, see, that's cool. You'd want a good biosuit, wouldn't you? Yeah, you'd want a good biosuit. But it's 42 solid days of doing nothing. nothing on full pay.

No, this is the thing, Dom. So this is the thing that I think where Australia's gone hugely wrong, right? Okay. Which is the World Health Organisation say you need to isolate the 42 days. Guess how long we're making people isolate? How long? Three weeks, 21 days. Well, no, the Guardian now says it's 42.

Oh, okay. That's a long time. That's a long time. It's a long time to be in not even Perth. You'd have to get a lot of gum. Near Perth. You'd have to get a lot of gummies. Yeah.

You'd have to get an addiction by the end. of it, I think, wouldn't you? Well, alcohol. If it's anything like the last pandemic, it will be alcohol. Alcohol, yeah. And baking. I hope they've got access to sourdough ovens, Charles. That's what they need.

So the thing that I want to know, so 40% death rate on this virus, right? Oh, does it really? That's very serious. The point is, if any of them do have it. Yes. Then, so there's four of them that you've got to say. I mean, that's like, yeah, that's really. They're bad odds.

That's bad odds. Yeah, very bad odds. So, and Mark Butler came out and said, I make no apologies for, I make no apology for being tough on Hantavirus, right? No, this is not true. This is not true. Oh, no, okay, yeah, 42 days, okay. I make no apology for the fact that this is one of the stronger approaches you'll see around the world. No, I think, like, I think, no, but you've got to be stronger.

I'm not sure why. Like, what is it about this government about bringing people back to this thing? First we had the ISIS brides. Now we've got the hand virus. Are they in a different resilient center? No, Charles, let's turn into a right-wing shock jock sort of organisation here. Surely if they're getting gummies and they've got weed addictions, wouldn't they go 420 days? Yeah.

That's an Elon Musk joke. I do apologize. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. I mean, this is really serious and scary. For the people involved, of course, for the flight crews, thank you for your service. But as with all things, Charles, for us.

Yeah. What's the angle on Sydney property prices? To be fair to these people, they've just spent a long time on a cruise ship. Their standards for entertainment are low. They'll be fine for 42 days. Do you think we should offer to go and do a little chase a report live? Oh, by the way, we should mention we're doing a Chase of Report live in a couple of weeks time. Assuming there's not a global pandemic.

Yeah, we may not make it. But we're planning to do this. Yeah. Yeah, let's give details a little bit later on, shall we? Yeah. No, but what I'm saying is, why don't we go and do one in the National Resilience Center? Because there's a captive audience. That's very grateful.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm very committed to the audience. Yeah. But my general approach to people with incredibly infectious deadly diseases is to not go to the woods. To not go near them. Okay, fair enough. But, but Charles, I guess the other thing to note, I've just been reading this long piece for the New York Times. which is RFK Jr., the health secretary.

Oh, great. He'll be great. He's been secretly running. His approach will be just let it flow through the population, aren't it? He's been running this very long and secretive and expensive inquiring to vaccines, basically trying to prove that vaccines are bad. And I think he's actually looking to sue all vaccine makers. So if he gets his way with this, they'll find evidence,

and then they'll sue all the vaccine manufacturers. for negligence. I just think we're going to find out from him that hantavirus is caused by vaccines. I don't know how he's going to get there, but I think he's just all of the bad things. So that's what may happen in the meantime. Don't think of trying to get vaccinated against hantavirus with this US government. It's not going to be an option. Right. So they just, they just won't even bother to, because if it kills 40% of the world's population, what does that bring it down to? It's sort of like, I mean, at least, it's a lot of people. It would it would improve the job market, wouldn't it?

Like, you'd really be able to negotiate a good wage for, you know, baristas and things like that. Customers. Oh, you need customers. There's no vaccine yet. They're working on one, Moderna and... But when the black plague, when the black plague wiped out a third of the world's population, right? Which is, I think, what we're talking about here. Similar numbers.

There was a huge century-long economic boom afterwards because the workers had a lot of bargaining power, right? Because there was... If you've survived. Yeah, if you survived, there was plenty of work. And there was social mobility. So instead of, like, because, you know, lots of the kings and nobles and knights and, you know, landowners had all been died, there was the ability for the merchant class to sort of rise through the ranks and take over owning things and running things and stuff. So, look, you know, there's two sides to every pandemic.

That's all I'm saying. This has gotten quite bleak, hasn't it? It's, although, I mean, by the time that you hear this, it might be bleaker still. You know why there's no vaccine for hantavirus? One of the reasons. There's no, it's too rare. Yeah, there's no money in it. Because it, and it kills so many people who get it.

Yeah. So why would you want to develop a vaccine of something that's very deadly in case it gets out? Well, no, it's because everyone just assumed that it wouldn't be transmissible. Like, oh, well, it's safe because you've got to be a connoisseur of rat urine. You said what I mean? I do. No one thought, oh, it'll be like that Dustin Hoffman movie outbreak where it suddenly jumps into being human-to-human transmissible.

Yeah, when a virus has ever evolved in a scary way that changes the world? I just want to know how they're going to link it to, you know, some sort of conspiracy theory about, you know, virology labs. Oh, yes. Is there a rat virus lab somewhere, like a floating one? Well, I mean, it is injured. Isn't it? Because look, this is not confirmed,

but I hear the couple had actually just visited a virology lab in Argentina. Really? Yeah. Was it, what is this sort of like a wet market for rats slash phorology lab? Yeah, that's it. But you go and drink, you go and taste test rat urine. Rat urine. Yes, sir.

Yeah, there's a sommelier. There's sort of trying combinations. Okay. I think, look, I think Disney's got a lot, you know. I agree. It's got blood on its head. here. Ratatoui.

Yeah. Ratatoui is now a horror movie. Yeah. Okay. So we should just mention, Charles, we're recording this at midday on Tuesday. Yep. Nobody is on, you know, none of the people involved in the Australian situation are in particular health crisis as far as we know.

Yeah. And this might be the last, we'll schedule this today. Yeah. To publish on Thursday. This could be the final episode of the Chase Report, both. Yeah. Because we cancelled due to insensitivity or because the handivirus get to solve. Should we just take a moment to look back on all the highlights of the Chaser Report over the years?

Just all that we've achieved in all the years that we've been doing it. Let's just take a moment now to just, actually probably need a lot of moments to just reflect on all the things that we've managed to accomplish. Well, to be honest, Dom, nothing springs to mind. But look, I'm sure there are things. I'll have to get back to you. Yeah. I think it's just, I'm so terrified of the hantavirus that I can't think of. Yeah.

But look, on the off chance that we are still alive in a couple of weeks' time, We're going to do a live show in Sydney. It's at a place called the Soda Factory, which is in Surrey Hills. It's called The Chase Report Live and Artie. We did one, I think, last year, which was very successful with Craig and Mark. And not with me. And not with Dom Hills away. But this time, it's going to be...

Worth Avenue, Surrey Hills. It's going to be Dom and me. It's on the 25th of May, which is, I think, a Sunday at 6th. Oh, that's quite soon, isn't it? Yeah, it's a couple of weeks away. So 25th of May, 6pm. We'll have an hour episode. So Jennifer Ford Hater, who's the artist who, uh, a few years, during the pandemic, I think

wasn't it was became embedded in the Chaser report for a while and photographed interns. It's the 24th. Sunday the 24th of May, uh, at 6 p.m. We'll record an episode between 6 and 7. So it maybe turn up a little bit before that. I'd turn up at 5.30. I think we've organised, last time we ordered, organised some free drinks.

So I don't know whether there's free drinks or maybe you've got to pay for it. Who knows? We'll fill in the blanks on some more information. But the tickets are available at Humanetics. I did ask John to put it up on the Chaser website. I don't know whether it's on the Chaser website yet. We're organising it as we speak.

If you get the, if you actually get the Chaser email, which actually is very hard to subscribe to, Because, yeah, fuck, it's not on the Chaser. When I go to the Chase website and look at live shows, there's a great show called The War in 2024. Okay. You're going to have to update that. In your comedy gala.

Oh, well, by the end of, by the time this goes out, we'll make sure it's advertised on the Chaser. It's very funny. It sounded good. We'll update the website. And, yeah, so I think tickets are like 15, 20 bucks or something. And then afterwards, from 7 to 8, we're having a sort of after-party. where you can go and look at all of Jennifer's amazing art.

We'll chat to her as well. And then, and during that period, there'll be a DJ. So DJ Freid Not is going to be DJing for that out. There you go. Yeah. And I think that that'll be quite spectacular. That may actually be better. That may be better than the actual episode that we recorded.

It's entire possible. Yeah. I don't know that you sold it quite as hard as you could have to get people to come out, get off the couch. But look, if you're still listening at this point in the podcast, you must either like it or be hate listening. So either way, come on. Oh, look, can I say, I reckon the last one we did was really fun.

Like, it was a genuinely good night. So I would, and I think those things actually work better if you turn up in person than if you then hear the podcast the next day or whatever. So if you are in Sydney and you want to do something on a Sunday night, come on. We're part of the Icona class network. And let's hope we are all still around. Yeah, if we're alive. If we're alive.

Yeah. Very good point.