The Chaser Report - Somehow, COVID Returned

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

As a cute, throwback Tuesday-style retrospective, Dom goes back in time five years and rediscovers how annoying COVID was. Plus, stop trying to make "mully fuddler" happen, Charles. It's not going to happen.---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. Hello, Charles. How are things treating you? Have you had a pleasant weekend of things gone well? Are you happy, safe? Well, you know, I think I always say, as long as you got your health, then everything else just falls into place, doesn't it?

It does. You know, the whole family is healthy. you know, lots of bike rides and just going outside, enjoying the Sydney sun, the Sydney winter sun is just a lovely weekend, really. Yeah, lovely weekend. World Cup going on. Yeah, exactly. One small issue is slightly impacting on my health and happiness. Oh, are you?

Are you miserable, are you? Just slightly. Yeah, it turns out COVID's back. What? Yeah, I know, we thought we were done with it, but apparently a line on our little rapid. antigen chest, remember those?

Yeah. Yeah, I remember them. Yeah. So what's, what's going on? Well, someone very close to me tested positive

on a rapid antigen test to COVID-19. And it just, it brought everything flashing back from the start of this podcast. We've come full circle in a way.

And I just think, you know how every era comes back in? Like the 90s revival was recent, the 70s when we were young, everyone's wearing flares and stuff.

The 80s even came back. I don't think we want 2000. I don't think we want 2020 to come back. I don't want to ever see that year return. And yet COVID apparently is still powering on. So hang on, hang on. Let's take some ads and ponder

the situation. So hang on. Sorry to be a bit of a, you know, muddy fuddler on this whole thing and just being able to down. I don't know what a mullie fuddler is. Is that a new, is that a new variant? I did the new Omicron. I'm trying to slip it into the

into the lingo just to see if I can get a new one. A mully fuddler. But just to be a bit of a mullie fuddler for a second, surely the trendy thing to have at the moment is bird flu. Surely, you know, like if you're going to have another pandemic, don't go back to COVID-19. It's in the name, 19. Like, it's ages ago.

But like go forward, have bird flu or hanta or whatever. You know, one of those new ones. Hantavirus was looking really like it could have been a whole new thing. in a world that's desperate for something novel, but no, still COVID. So there's an overall kind of tracker of COVID-19. Oh, yeah. And it's KFF.org. Yeah.

Is it just on autopilot? Is it? It only ranks two and a half thousand cases in the past week. So you've got to feel a little bit special, don't you? Well, in Australia or in the world? Worldwide. It's the leading health policy organization. KFF is doing a global cracker.

There's been 770 million cases, 7 million deaths. And clearly, if they're only tracking 2,000-globally, no one cares anymore, right? In fairness, hot pants that were fluorescent lime, there were about 77 million of them back in 2016. Yeah, absolutely. And probably an equal, like 7 million fashion deaths, I would say. That's true. Very good analogy, Charles. Nowadays, yeah, I would be surprised that if even there were 2,500 people across the globe wearing lime green hot pan.

And the doctor said, yeah, look, we just treat it like flu. There's none of this sort of complicated notification. There's none of this quarantine. I mean, remember when it just seems surreal to think back that you would be at a venue that someone else with COVID had been to at some point. Like, it could be an entire shopping. It could be a shopping centre with several hundred shops in it. And if you happen to be in there at the same time as someone with COVID, that was it. You're at home for a week.

You couldn't leave. It's over. And now it's like, but wait a minute. It just leads me to ask a question that I've fought valiantly for many years with the idea that now it was like flu if you have it. Yeah, okay. If you have any symptoms, don't go to work, of course. Don't spread it.

Be careful. Don't go any vulnerable people, loved ones, so on. The question is, did we massively overreact back in 2020? When we turned our lives upside down, was that going too far? Was it, as the libertarians were saying, was it nuts? Or was it nuts for too long once we knew about the disease? Well, surely it was definitely nuts for too long. And also, you know, you look back at some of those lockdowns that, you know,

the Dan Andrews government did, where they were locking up people who were not in a great way from a mental health perspective. And you're going, that is not. good stuff. But that's got to be about, you've got to also remind yourself that, you know, the COVID strain that your family member has got is nothing like the COVID strain that was, you know, remember, because remember it was the novel coronavirus. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it's death rate was something like 1% or something. It was a terribly big death. Yeah, which is why, when they say 7 million people died, it was all the people who had the first few

strains that were in those statistics. And then, you know, but, you know, there are things like, I've got family members who, you know, even at the time were sort of going, this is absolutely, first of all, the lockdowns are very class-based. Like, you sort of have the, what was it called, the mockdown in the northern beaches where rich people lived. But as soon as it reached southwest Sydney, it was suddenly, no one's to leave. It was the post codes of concern, remember? Like, everyone who. actually made the city work, like everyone who did deliveries and stuff and actually made

the affluent people's lives possible, that was... Yeah, they couldn't come into the places, but the rich people lived, unless they were delivering, I don't know, toilet paper or something. Yeah, but I don't know, it's hard to know. But it is weird that it's just sort of bubbling around in the background now. Yeah, but what we do know is, but also what we also do know is there was a very clear decision made to sacrifice the education of young people. And look, my kids loved the fact that they didn't actually get educated for a better

year. But to sacrifice that and sacrifice all these completely threshold moments in people's lives. My son was in year six at the time. Yeah, yeah. And that's one of your best years of your life. Yeah, that's the top of the school. It's really fun.

You're still a child. You know, you still got that sort of enthusiasm for life and everything. And it's sort of obliterated that. year, and all to save, let's remember who was actually dying, old people. It was to save the boomers. I mean, in very large numbers. And look, and look what's happened seven years later, they're all dead anyway. I mean, like, if you could go back in time, just to be able to just like have fun in

year six, there was slightly more fun. Yeah. Sorry, grandpa. Sorry, grandpa. Oh, God. Oh, no. Okay, maybe that's too much. We've got to remember that we didn't know.

We didn't know exactly how bad it was. Yeah. If it could get worse. But, yeah, the second round of lockdowns. It was also amazing that all the libertarians suddenly didn't want revolution on the street. You know how every Hollywood movie up until that point was as soon as they take away your freedom, everyone will be on the street. Get your guns.

And then instead, everyone, you know, they took away our freedom. And it was like, okay, so where do I, where do I sign in the QR code? How do I adhere to your rules? Do you remember this? Remember the QR codes? Sign-ins and the giant data collection? That's my conspiracy theory. It's the creator of the QR code.

It was big QR. Because QR codes did not take off. It just did not. It was. And they've been going for like 15 years at that point. They'd been around forever. No one used them. And now every second cafe order on a QR code.

Yeah. Big QR. Is that it? Big QR. He was responsible. Clearly what was going on. But I remember doom scrolling and being in absolute terror that it was all going to go down. That was the time when I also discovered I had an immune deficiency that left me vulnerable to respiratory viruses.

So I think a little degree of panic was probably allowed, but I definitely took it too far. I thought it was all over. Yeah. And look at the amazing things I've done with my life since then. This podcast. Imagine this podcast. if it had only had a couple of hundred episodes instead of what 1,400 or whatever it is now. Well, that was the hate-day.

Because remember we had the Scott Morrison, you know, all those like cash handouts for not doing anything. Remember there? Oh, jobs. Job keep up. Job keeper. Job keeper. And that's when we had all the interns. And we managed to sort of, like, they all kept their jobs.

How did you create? Oh, because you just happened to create. those jobs for a short term just before a job kept up. I was, yeah, before the pandemic hit, I'd started employing them. And so the records were all there. You had this whole entire building thing going. And then even though it had no commercial basis for it whatsoever, they just were able to be paid really good wages.

Because they're in a job. Yeah. Through us, but essentially by the government. But shouldn't you have actually claimed the money to pay them and then not given it to them? Isn't that what lots of big companies did at the time? That was the big, yeah, if we'd just been a little bit more sophisticated, we could have really screwed those workers. Yeah, did Harvey Norman ever pay back its job, its job seeker?

Oh, in 2021, it paid back six of the $22 million that it claimed. Right. Oh, well, there you go. Bearing in mind that all the, and if anyone selling homeways got an absolute mozzar, because everyone ordered big, big TVs. I must say, it hasn't been fun looking back on this time. Being stuck at home with a relative, it certainly does bring back memories of the pointlessness of those days. I've completely forgotten how to bake sourdough bread, Charles.

Oh, good. And are you planning to get COVID yourself, or is that a little bit too old school for you? I think it's a phenomenon best observed for others. I've had it twice and, yeah, I didn't love it. It's probably two stars out of five for me. What I will say, though, is I've just remembered the one good thing about COVID. I am. Drinking. Oh, yes. I've barely drunk since I was polishing off bottles of wine at home all the time back then. I think it was actually compulsory. It was part of the government's mental health plan or something, wasn't it? I can't really remember much from that time.

Yeah, it's booze keeper or something. I can't remember what it was. All right. So all I need to do is just get a home delivery of some very strong spirits in the interests of keeping everybody safe, doing my bit for public health. Okay. Good on you. Good on you, Dom.

I'm so good. I'm so good. My way to saving lives. Yes. Well done. Bottoms up. We're part of the iconic class network. Catch you tomorrow.