The Chaser Report - Omicron, You ARE The Father!

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

The paternity test is in, and Omicron has birthed a brand new variant! Charles brings you all the latest information on how you and your kids are going to die instantly. Meanwhile George Christensen has encouraged his followers to call the TGA in protest, so we encourage you to call him in protest of phone-call protests. Plus we missed Dom, so we gave him a call to find out what he's been up to. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Wednesday, the 2nd of February. I'm Charles Firth. And I'm Gabby Bolt. I'm John Dominico. And I'm Lachlan. All right. He's tired.

Big news for lazy protests. Ooh. Yeah. I like a lazy protest. George Christensen, notorious activist, has called in a phoned-in protest. Really? Yeah, he's calling on people, including. including himself. He actually said, I hope the phones aren't too busy. At the TGA, he wants to

call the TGA. Oh, that's nice. I'm hoping the TGA aren't too busy. Yeah, I know right now. I don't know what they're going on. But anyway, he wants to call TGA and make them approve the use of Ivermectin for COVID treatment. So he wants everyone to call the TGA. Yeah, he's like, join the fight. Join the fight on the front line from your couch. Yeah, I know. I love it too because it's just like, it's like all of the spirit of a protest without any of the spirit of a protest. Yeah, yeah. And will, is the idea that the TGA will go, well, normally we just trust science to do it out, to work out what we do. But you know what? Your arguments?

Lots of good phone calls. Good fucking points. You know. I had very pleasant conversations. Yeah. I like the idea, though. The idea of not having to do anything for a protest is something like I would get down. Yeah, but look, I got to say the types that would, I mean, they're tired, aren't they?

The types that would call the TGA. They don't want to get out in the streets. They've been doing that every Saturday for the last three months. If only there was a way we could do it. For something else, though. Well, we should do it against George Christensen. I was going to say, any good activist protest comes with a counter protest. Yes.

Ah, so if we were to find that George Christensen's officer's number is 0749-44-0662... Yeah, that number again is, what, Lachlan? 0749-44-0662. Yeah, look, you didn't hear it from me. But if you were to call that number and protest the use of George Christian. And if you didn't remember the number, you can always Google it as well. Yeah. Yeah.

And in Manila, there's a service for that. Yeah, this is his Australian number. This is not the phone. Yeah, it's not the burner phone. Yeah, you don't have to. Yeah, you don't have to get, you know, the international race. International calls of Philippines. No, no.

Okay, so just one last time. So you call George Christensen on 0749-44-0662. Yeah, and just protest the use of his mouth. It protests the use of phone protests. Yeah. That would be funny. Coming up on today's show. Well, we've got a new, there's a new variant, son of Omicron.

Fuck me. It's out. I only just got used to the last fucking variant. It's like a new phone at this point. It's landed in Australia. We're going to find out all about it. I'm still on a plan for Omicron 1. I can't afford the upgrade.

All right. I'm over it. Plus, we're going to actually talk about a little bit about what we've been doing over the break. Yeah. Which is pretty exciting stuff. Yeah. But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Day and a minnow in the Chaser Newsroom. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. promising free rapid antigen tests for everyone after realizing it sounded too much like making an actual policy. Albo's team hopes that if this move is successful, it will put him back

behind in the polls. Boris Johnson has celebrated the end of his house parties being investigated by throwing another massive taxpayer-funded party. He was disappointed, however, upon learning that he had already slept with all the women invited. Frydenberg has warned there is no more federal government money to give out unless you are a fossil fuel company. A recent bank statement had revealed the yearly budget had been completely depleted on car parks, submarines, tanks and COVID tracking apps which reported zero cases. That's the latest headlines from The Chaser Report.

I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. is the second day of the second month of the year 2022, or as I'm calling it, Tuesday. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. So, guys, there's a new variant of the virus. I am shocked. It is so shocking. You've heard about it. Omicron, of course.

Yeah. But there's now son of Omicron, is what they're calling it. Are they actually calling it that? Yeah. And it landed in Australia over the weekend. It's now in 40 countries. They reckon it's 50% more contagious than Omicron. Wow.

Fucking hell. So it's pretty bad. I mean, one of the things about Omicron is that, you know how it went up and then down really quickly? South Africa. And that's happened in the UK. It's been like that. In Australia, the cases seem to be doing that thing. But you know what?

The funny little punchline of that whole. thing is, I'm listening, that even though the cases spike and then crumble, the deaths linger on. So in South Africa, six weeks after the peak of cases, people are still,

there's no peak in deaths. It's still going up six weeks later. How is that possible? The death rate doesn't, the death rate also doesn't, like as the cases numbers go up with Omicron, the actual amount of deaths didn't, like, barely change at all in hospitalisations.

So it stayed consistent from, if you had from, like, like it dropped after Delta and then stayed consistent through wild cases of spiking. That's why a doctor said it was a mild thing. So are people getting... No, no, no. The deaths have gone up because of Omicron. Sorry, they go up, but not in the same...

They go up in a much slower rate than... Yes. And because what the doctors were saying about Omicron is they've managed to come up with all these ways to get air into the lungs, right? And there's all these techniques that they're using to slow down the process of dying. But they haven't actually improved the rate of survivability. So actually what's happening is they've flattened the curve of dying.

Oh. So it's not that there won't be a lot of deaths. It's just that it's a much flatter curve than the actual cases. And the slower death. Yeah, just slower, more prolonged death. So there you go. That's a bit of good news about Omicron. Let's talk about the new variant.

I'm sorry, what part of that is good? Well, I just think it's sort of, it's ironic, isn't it? It's nice to be consistent. You know, we're learning to live with the virus. We're actually learning to die with the virus. But anyway, let's talk about the new variant. This is called BA2. And this actually, there's a bit of good news.

Okay. Just as good as the death rate going up? Charles, I've been hurt before by your good news. No, which is, okay, so it's now in 40 countries. I think it's going to take over the world. And it does seem to be very Omicron-like in that if you're vaccinated, if you're double-vaxed, triple-vaxed, you know, it's a bit like a cold, bit like a, you know, flu.

Right. That's as bad as it gets. It's now the predominant strain in Denmark. But there is one difference, one difference between Omicron and Son of Omicron. Right. Which is that in. In Denmark, there is just a surging peak of deaths in toddlers. So that's the thing that it's now targeting.

So, you know, until now, you know, this virus has spared the most annoying group of people in society. Charles, Charles, I'm going to stop you. And now, and now we finally, now the toddlers finally get them come up and. Why don't we leave child care now? No. Things are starting to get good. Oh, dear.

We've not had a good run with dead kids the last couple months. be honest. So I don't really know. When has the Chaser ever had a good run with dead kid jokes? That's true, actually. I suppose we've never really had a great track record. But here's the thing. I don't really know how the listeners is going to respond to you thinking that the deaths of toddlers

is a good thing. Come on. This is right. No, I'm just saying, unless you're actually the parent of a toddler, no one thinks that toddlers are any good. How do your parents feel about you, Charles? They're the most annoying shit. I'm not a toddler.

Oh, bold, bold claim. Awkward silence in the office right now, Charles, as you were. He is not, like, you know, Charles isn't a toddler. Legally, he is considered old. Here's the thing about hating toddlers, right? Yeah. If you don't want toddlers, don't have kids. Because toddlers is like a quarter of their life.

Or, or if you don't want toddlers, give them BA too. Oh, my God. It's like, it's like, geez. It's like the new abortion technique after the fact. It's like lay by. This is like Plan C. This is horrible. This is horrible.

I prefer making children suffer the old-fashioned way, anxiety, but this is just as fun. We're just saving them from having to deal with the climate crisis. Yeah. Is there a variant that we can use to target, like, other microcic... So this variance... I think maybe 45-year-old white meme. Yeah, I was going to say, personally, I wouldn't mind a variant that gives me a house one day. That'd be nice.

Kill off all the people in the nice, affordable houses. I was hoping for maybe a variant that would target NRL players. Oh, like an SDD. Yeah. Yeah. There is a variance. I hope you. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. Fizz is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fizz.C. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. Now we're going to have a bit of a self-indulgent moment now.

We don't take enough of those, honestly, yeah. And just go around the room, find out what people did over the break. Because I don't know about you, but I had a very exciting break. Lots of near-death experiences. Yeah, good. Not for me, just for the kids I was looking after. So that's just a regular week for you then. Yeah, that's right.

But first of all, why don't we go to, he's not actually in the studio today. He's decided to be sensible and not get Omicron, which is nice. He doesn't want to catch Omicron, but why don't we give him a call? Hello, Dominic speaking. Oh, hello, Dom. How are you going? Hi, who's this? This is Charles.

Oh, my God, he's lost his memory. Oh. Remember you're supposed to be on the podcast this week? We're back at work. Are you still doing? doing that. Yeah, we got 11 million listeners on Monday because we changed our name to the Joe Rogan experience.

Oh, yeah, because this is my whole problem with the podcast, is that no one can make a living from it. So I'm assuming you've invoiced Spotify for 100 mil. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. We're going to, yeah, it'll be great. But, you know, so we're doing a segment, Dom, which is what did you do during your holidays? Oh, yes. But you seem to still be on your holidays.

Well, no, I had to get another job because it was. podcasting is not really a job. And I've had a very, very exciting summer, but quite challenging. I actually got hired as Novak Djokovic's local fixer. What's that like? It's been interesting. Well, the first thing was I had to become an anti-vaxxer, which is pretty tough, given that I'm triple-vax.

So I've been trying to unvaccinate myself desperately. Donald Trump's doing the same thing, actually. It's a lot of either-mectin and a lot of self-flagellation. But can't you just use Novak's thing and just lie about it? Yeah, you could, but it's been quite tricky because you know all that controversy about his test, like with the numbering and wasn't really him? The thing was that that was actually me. I had to go to Serbia and get COVID, so he could make it to Melbourne. It was really, I can't speak Serbian.

I just had to go and pass random Serbs on the dance floor. Obviously, it took about 10 minutes to catch it. Yeah. So it was a very difficult summer. Yes, it will be thrilled. And what was it like having COVID over in Serbia? Oh, everyone does. I was just normal.

I mean, there were no hospitals going like that. And then I was on the phone back here trying to get Tennis Australia to give him an exemption and, you know, get him through border force. And I just said he's going to go on, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here. And, you know, obviously he's a more sensible person to let him than Thomas Mark or Megan's brother. So I thought it would be easy. I'd better be fine. Yeah, yeah.

But then you stuffed it all up. up, what happened? Well, it's actually, I think it's more Novak's fault than mine, because when he was, you know how he was held up at the border and all night, they had him there and he had that long, and if you forgot to use the magic phrase that I told him so many times, if you get held up to say, I'm an opair for Peter Dutton, and you get straight in. Yes. And then, I couldn't believe the refugee hotel thing.

I mean, that was so embarrassing for Novak. You know, he was in that, in that hotel with all the other people who'd been there for nine is he was the only person there who was legitimately locked up for an immigration violation. It was just awful. But I did do some good stuff. I mean, you remember how there was just that one person outside the airport, just with a piano accordion and a Serbian flag? That was my work. I found that guy.

And that was the one point during the whole summer when people actually felt sorry for Nozac for having such shit fans. You organized a mess protest of one person. Yeah, yeah. You're doing better than George Christensen. That's the best joke. January 6th protest I've ever seen. So, you know, he ended up well for him. He went back to Serbia.

He had a hero's welcome. And then two hours later, he left for his real home for tax purposes, Monte Carlo. Nice. And the good news is, actually, I'm not going to be coming back to the podcast because he's asked me to work for him all year. Congratulations. Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it?

He doesn't believe in evidence or logic. So he just says, that's fine. Keep coming. And I've even figured out, guys, the way that he can play the Australian Open next year. Yeah. Yeah. which is a homeopathic vaccine. I think it's going to be amazing.

Oh, that's great. Yes. Just tea tree oil in the veins. So I won't be seeing you any time soon. But look, keep doing your little podcast. And if you need any updates from like the glamorous life of national tennis, just give me a ring, although I will definitely get a restraint of COVID. Nice.

Well, thank you very much, Dom. That sounded very true. Yeah. I actually just worked all summer. It was really boring. So, yeah, I don't want to come back. Yeah. Thanks, Tom.

Can't wait to see you back in the office, mate. In 2024. That's all we've got time for today. Our gives from road microphones, and we are part of the ACAST Creator Network. Catch you tomorrow. Or maybe I'll catch B02. B2? B2.

Oh, B02 is what you seven kids have. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca.