The Chaser Report - The Delta Variant | Dan Ilic

Episode Date: June 27, 2021

We are in lockdown! And joined by special guest host and possibly infected Bondi resident, Dan Ilic, of the 'A Rational Fear' podcast. Charles is on holidays, trying to wrangle his disappointed kids, but comes back for a bit anyway, because we are in lockdown! Also, Craig calls NSW Health. 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 Monday, the 28th of June, coming to you from Sydney in lockdown. This is the Delta variant of the Chaser Report, not only because, you know, run a lockdown. Delta's everywhere, but also we have a change of host. Mr Dan Illich, host of the Rational Fear podcast, joins us. Hello, Dan. Hello, Dom. It's great to be with you.

and much like the Delta variant, I was born to cry. You absolutely were. And that's what I'm doing right now. I'm in lockdown in Bondi. And, you know, I'm just doing my best Delta impression wherever I go. Yeah, so Charles is off trying to keep his children from completely going to pieces during this holiday. But we'll check with him very shortly, though, on how that's going. But, Dan, I'm very glad we got a temporary co-host from the heart of Bondi itself.

How has it been there in the epicenter of this hell that we're all facing? You know what, it's been not too much different from when we're not in lockdown. Bondo is a spacious place. There's lots of space to be. You can spend the day being 1.5 metres apart from pretty much anyone in Bondo because there is so much space. The only problem I've found is that it's hard to get a mask with a hole to put a nozzle in for cocaine. That is the difficult thing to find in this place.

But once we get one of those masks, then I'll be ready to go. Well, I presume that the dealers have figured out their contactless train. drug delivery by this stage. Oh, they have. You know, Jimmy brings, they bring you alcohol. I've got a guy called Augusto, and Augusto brings you lots of other things. That's very handy. You know, if you don't pay him within 30 minutes, he shoots you in the face.

Is that right? Yeah, and let's face it, that is COVID safe. I mean, if you're dead, you're not going to be transmitting or breathing your fumes on anybody else. Now, how have the backpackers coped with the restrictions? Because it is Party Central 24-7. You've got people going out on the beach. I mean, are they're basically groups of 10 people just going. like soft sand running. What's going on?

It's interesting to see the kind of makeup change in the diaspora of backpackers in this area. We don't really have any British or Irish backpackers anymore. It appears to be mostly French and Brazilian. It feels like all the Brits

have gone home. It's kind of a strange mix-up at the moment here. So the Brits picked it. The Brits realized months ago that if they went home, they'd get to enjoy summer and get vaccinated, No chance of that here. That's right.

And we all know that Bolsonaro is bolzing up, oh, the Brazilian vaccination. So that's why all the Brazilians are in other countries that might be a little bit safer than Brazil. That sounds perfect. Anyway, Dom, just before lockdown started, I went to the Bondo Beach COVID testing center just to get my head around the latest numbers. Yeah, well, New South Wales Health said there is going to be 13 new cases today. But we have to account for six new cases that could be coming tomorrow. but seven cases that came in three days ago. About three of those cases weren't real cases.

They were fake cases. So we have to kind of divide that by six, then add the capital gains tax on top. And I'm not quite sure where that leaves us. I think we're somewhere in the vicinity of seven. But that's a prime number. So just keep that in mind. Seven.

All right, coming up on today's show, live from Bondi, we're going to take a look at the latest COVID outbreak with the return of our much-loved segment from 2020. COVID-Watch. We're going to take a look at how parents may be able to cope with their kids at home during these school holidays. We know a lot of plans have been completely axed. Well, I've got some tips for you, so stick around for that.

Craigree Castle has been bothering the hardworking bureaucrats at New South Wales Health to ask whether a little game show that he's working on can go ahead. But first, let's head to Rebecca Day and Amuno in the Chaser Newsroom. The Sydney COVID lockdown has boosted. the city's property prices to even more ridiculous heights over the weekend. All in-person inspections and auctions were shut down, leading to even higher prices due to the heightened exclusivity. In Bondi, a disused phone booths sold for $19 million after cashed-up boomers bought it as their 23rd investment property. The new owner said it's a small price to pay to get in on

the cluster everyone is talking about. Shops across Victoria have seen their shelves stripped of popcorn following the lockdown in the self-described gold standard state of New South Wales. One gleeful Victorian said, who would have thought not having a mask mandate, nobody getting vaccines, and everyone being encouraged to just go about their lives, would have not been effective to stop the delta strain. Media outlets across the state are now planning to send journalists to waste the New South Wales Premier's time during vital public health briefings.

ousted former Nationals leader and man deemed less competent than Barnaby Joyce, Michael McCormack has announced his retirement from politics in order to enter the lucrative fruit picking job market. These inner-city woke young people are too focused on their decaf cappuccinos to get their hands dirty on the land, McCormack said, from inner city Canberra while sipping a decaf cappuccino. McCormac is looking forward to the anonymity of working on the land after the anonymity of his career in politics.

That's the latest chaser news. I'm Rebecca Daynamuno, and after three days I'm already board shitless in lockdown. This episode of The Chase Report is brought to you by foresight. Who could have predicted that not ordering enough vaccines during a pandemic would be a problem? Forsight. COVID Watch.

Yes, it is back our segment, looking at the latest ins and outs of COVID-19 as much of the country goes into lockdown. And you've got to say, when Sydney has an outbreak, it really has an outbreak. It's when Sydney sneezes, the entire country catches COVID-19. Let's start with Gladys Berger-Clean, the big press conference yesterday, updating us what was going on and how much worse everything was getting. I want to thank everybody for accepting the government's decision yesterday in relation to the two-week lockdown.

Would we say that, Dan? Would we say that everyone accepted that the two-week lockdown was? Why didn't you go fucking? I like that there's an implied acceptance, like that we are very much a country of cop lovers that are enjoying the cops at this point in time. Well, I tell you what, Gladys Berrigalian, you're not so much Gladys Berejiklian as Gladys

Putin with these kind of strict lockdown measures. Gulag Gladys we've been calling her on the podcast, but I mean, one day it's, oh, we'll just do a couple of postcodes in Sydney for a week, that will do. and that had the situation where in King Street in Newtown one side of the street was locked down and the other side wasn't, gee, can you see a floor in that plan, Dan? Is it where you can cross the road to escape lockdown?

But there were hipsters sitting on the balconies of shops in Newtown shooting people crossing the street. So that at least was good, that there was a demilitarised zone, people going from Dendi to Messina were in real trouble. They certainly were. And then they go, okay, the day later, you know, let's go the whole thing, let's go to, weeks. Can I just point out it wasn't a day later? Two days ago when this got announced,

it was like, well, you know, we're going to, we're going to pivot and quickly update our messaging. We're going to absolutely go according to the advice of New South Wales Health. We're going to lock down the whole city now. Thank you. So, Dan, I'm feeling a bit irritated, though, that, you know, just a day after our citywide lockdown, the NT copycats did a two-day lockdown, you know, go early, go quick, exactly like we were supposed to do, how dare they steal our thunder on being the place that's suffering? You know, you're in trouble when the Northern Territory seems to be of more sound minds than the state you're living in. When better decisions are being made in the Northern Territory, you've got to think to yourself, is it time to

move? Is it time to go to Darwin to live out the rest of my days? Because they seem to have their shit together there. Yeah, I read a news report that said that Darwin was looking incredibly quiet and there was no one out. And I sort of thought, how could they tell? This is the thing. I saw a person on Twitter today tweet, empty cross-city tunnel in Sydney, saying, oh, here's the cross-city tunnel like you've never seen it.

And I thought, hang on, this person clearly doesn't drive because the cross-city tunnel is always empty. Yeah, and also this is the one time when you can not go in any of the tollways because there's no one on the road. Also, Labour leader Chris Minns tweeted yesterday, screenshots of roads in Sydney completely bereft of traffic from 7 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday saying, good on you, Sydney, you can do this. We're doing it. I'm like, mate, it's 7 o'clock on a Saturday. What are you talking about, Chris Minns? Stop this performative leadership. It's rubbish. But I'm just worried, Dan, that the fact that other places are in lockdown, purse got restrictions as well, and it may well

spread elsewhere. I'm worried that what we really need is for Melbourne not to get this. Can you imagine how much more Melbourne's going to hate us if we give them the fifth lockdown? Already there's a lot of commentary coming out of Melbourne that's kind of pointing to the rest of the country like, oh, the whole country is now, the whole country now understands what we're going through. Oh, we've had vitriol from the whole country up until now. I'm like, I don't think anyone in Australia has been going, oh, Melbourne are real jerks from going into lockdown. I don't think that's been the case. But you can certainly understand that that's how they probably feel because they were the only ones going through it at the time. I mean, this is the upside for me.

If, as seems likely, this Sydney lockdown spirals downhill and, you know, we're all indoors for the next hundred days or so, at least, at least Melbourneians won't be able to go, oh, you don't know how we feel. You don't know what it was like. You can't shut up. You can't imagine how much we've suffered. Yeah, Melbourne is like my passive aggressive brother who once loaned to me a thousand when I was 18 and then never really asked for it back and then when he brought it up when I was 30 saying oh you never give me that thousand dollars back did you Melbourne is the

ultimate passive aggressive cousin in this whole situation that's it of course Dan we don't know what they went through we can't possibly comment we can't possibly comment look I've only been through two days of it so far who knows what the next hundred days are going to be like I mean it seems pretty easy for the first two days look and do you know what I hate to kind of talk about this, but I'm in lockdown, Dom, in Bondi Beach. I can't express to you how fortunate of all the suburbs to be locked down in. I'm locked down in a beautiful natural environment where I have to walk around and avoid people all day. God, it's tough. I mean, you would have avoided the locals there anyway, wouldn't you? That's right. I mean, you do have to stay away from people

because you'll get in the way of their selfies, for one. Yes, indeed. Last thing, Dan, it's just a bit of news on the fines. We always love a bit of a fine watch of what people are getting up to. And look, big congratulations to the biggest idiots over the weekend. A family, of course, from Sydney's eastern suburbs who traveled to the Hunter region for a horse meat. Dan, there was a horse meat and people called the cops on them. That's great. You know, you see this happening in regional New South Wales at the moment. People from Sydney identify themselves from Sydney and those people. in those regional areas, rightly so, calling the Copthon people.

That is perfect. I think that is great. Here's the thing, they're travelling for a horse meat, which I assume is a horse event, like an equine event. Yeah, some sort of jumping, show jumping or some bullshit. Yeah, if they were actually travelling to buy horse meat, that's acquiring food, which might be legal under the current regime. That's true.

It's an essential service. Yeah, it's essential service. We're buying horse meat, Gladys. We're buying horse meat for my family. If they just shot the horses dead and started butchering them up, it would have been completely illegal. They're leaving the area for food, which is completely fine under the current laws.

Although I did notice that the cops gave them each a $1,200 fine, right? Sure. If you're rich enough to travel from the Eastern South Wales to the Hunter Valley for a horse meat, you're not even going to notice. You know what? They're going to be like, oh, $1,200. I was going to buy an Urmez bookmark,

but I think I'll have to put that money. on the fine. I mean, you know what you've got to do. Got a Melbourne cupboard, put up the green blinds. Sorry, little girl. The horse is going by-bye. The only way you'll learn. This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by not making any plans ever.

If you don't make plans, they can't get ruined. Not making any plans. It's origin time. Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory are all asking. Who is the state? of origin. Yeah, the Bondi cluster started off small in Westfield Bondi Junction, but three hours of parking and into financial use sales was enough to contain the spread.

It's state for state. Victoria has great form. Their four lockdowns down, the shelves are already completely empty of coffee. It's mate first mate. Yeah, technically Northern Territory is a territory, not a state, so it doesn't really fit this joke. And the state of origin of the latest COVID outbreak is New South Wales. It's not a real origin lockdown until you can't play footy and spew up in the best and fairest mouth.

Now, Charles, I understand that you have had a bit run to a bit of a problem. This is the reason why I'm here in the Chaser report daily over the next couple of weeks is that during school holidays, you were planning on disappearing for a couple of weeks, but now you're stuck at home with your kids. Yes, I've been literally planning a trip to the Kakadu for 12. months. It was our post-COVID lockdown treat to the whole family. My mom was coming along. Wow. It was just going to be wonderful. And then fucking hotel quarantine. Fucking Delta. Fucking fuck fuck. Oh, that is such a shame. That is such a shame. I have kindly put

together like a holiday package you can take with you in your ears with the Chaser Report podcast. So I'm going to play you some soundscapes. And I want you to be transported to these holidays. Now, as I play these soundscapes of potentially you and your family on holiday, I want you to tell me where you think you are. Okay, great. And I can play this segment back to my kids later on and take them all around the world. It's a holiday for their imagination.

And because you're not paying me very much, they're only 10 seconds long, but that's a 10 second holiday when otherwise your kids would be talking to you. That is a huge benefit, like anything. Where is this soundscape? So there's definitely, I think there's a baby crying. Any idea, chance. Any idea? Then there's a nice parrot.

So I'm going to say Malaysia. Is it a macaw or something? Not quite Malaysia. Am I close? I think it's probably closer to where you are now. Oh, okay. Yes. Is it like Broadway shopping seniors?

Bondo Westfield. Is it a hot spot? I heard a baby crying, but then the beautiful sounds of nature somewhere. Yeah. Where is it? That is Kakadu National Park, that one. Ah, no. And was that a baby crying?

Well, you're on school, during school holidays, wherever you go, there's going to be a baby crying. Yeah, yeah, right. All right. So, it's just, there's part and buzz. Here's the other one. Here's the next one. Here you go. Any idea?

Any idea of that one? Was that a ride or something? Was that like at, um, it was Disneyland or something? I heard a swishing sound maybe Yeah, swishing, yeah crashing at the waves perhaps And then... Oh, okay

Someone brought the same bloody baby along Oh no, it's in fucking Darwin, isn't it? It's in the cuckadoo again, isn't it? No, it's the sound of skiing, it's perisher. Oh, right, okay. Oh, right. Godham shit at this. All right, all right.

You do realize, Dan, my kids are 10 and 12 They don't actually sound like that. I bet they do these holidays, Charles. They feel like that. All right, here's the last one. Here's the last one. Let me know if you can guess this one. Look at this watch.

Seriously, it's a Rolex and it costs $6.50. I talked to him down from 10. Yeah, I've got a bargain. It's real. No, it's real. Yeah. And if you want to have a massage with a special surprise ending, you've got to go.

Well, actually, there can be a lot of... This isn't better than post. I'm assuming it's Barley. It's Barley. Yeah, you're going to write. And congratulations, Charles. You get a five-minute long version of that soundscape to play to your kids this school holidays.

On loop. You're too kind. That's great. Great. Can I go home now? Oh, I am home. Damn. It was a very helpful reminder, though, that no matter where you go to try and relax,

your kids are still fucking ruining it. That's it. They're still there. They're going to destroy you. This episode of The Chase Report is sponsored by working from home. Is it working? Sorry, working from home. Shut up.

Okay, Craig has joined us from isolation. We're all in our homes complying with the new government rules. Hello, Craig. Hello, good to be here. I'm not only in isolation. I'm actually currently on hold to the new. South Wales Department of Health to ask some questions. Now, I have been here for approximately on hold for, you know, a few years so far.

Yeah, they just might be slightly busy. Yeah, I don't know why. It's strange. You're a bad time to choose to contact them about all your venereal diseases. I know, this is it. I mean, I'm not even calling about COVID. It's just so many of the health issues. But so if I leave partway through a conversation, that is why, also if at some point,

I act as if you guys are talking by just playing the same bit of music over and over for like three hours, you'll understand as well. So hang on, East South Wales Health is currently dealing with a life-threatening outbreak of the worst strain of COVID. Are you by any chance ringing to see if you can do your quiz show? No, no, I'm not actually, I'm ringing to ask them if Mr. Wall is there or Mrs. wall of it. Or if they're refrigerators running.

No, what are you, what are you honestly asking them? What's the, I do this literally just have, like, for work purposes, there's all these questions about, you know, what people are. So you are. You are asking about the yes, yes. You're asking about your quiz show. Oh, yeah, because that's the most vital thing in this state at the moment. All the things.

I do his quiz show. Hey, shut up. I employ lots of people. Unlike you, dirtbags, you just get interns. Shut up. I need to find out what work they can do. Craig, if you're short of, you know, celebs, has been on the call with you.

Yeah, no, actually, Dom, it's actually that we're short of people who are members of the public and that aren't celebrity, so you might be in for a role. But isn't it clear that, like, COVID has already won the week, pretty much at this point? Yeah, and Craig still will somehow not get that answer right. Yeah, that's right.

What's COVID? While we're talking about this, I've just discovered there's such a thing in the world as the Delta Plus strain of COVID. It's upgraded and it's even more contagious than this one. So thank goodness we're already building a massive quarantine facility for Sydney. Oh, that's right. We're not.

What's Delta Plus? Is it just the same but a bit more... It's more legroom. Yeah, more legroom. That's great. It's from England. so you know it's going to be pretty spicy. It's true, actually.

I have once flown Delta the airline, and it's actually unfair to Delta the coronavirus to link it to that. So yeah, and then there'll be Delta plus plus and, you know, then there'll be Epsilon. We've got to load the Greek alphabet. Well, he knows the next letter of the Greek alphabet. No, but I know Epsilon.

I don't know the next one after that. Does anyone know what the... Is it gamma in there somewhere? What's ancient Greek? for F. Is it epsilon gamma? Maybe you're right. No, we had Gamma already.

How have we already? Gamma. Gamma was the other one from India. What? We are so good at epidemiology in this shape. I'm looking forward to the Zeta one. That's not, that I'm not. I'm just waiting out for the Zeta one.

That's going to be great. Yeah. Well, Craig, I hope that for the public health of the state of New South Wales, your quiz show can go ahead, mate. It's the only way to deliver a news to the people. It's for what level of coronavirus we're at through picture games. And look, if you're looking for publicity to get the ratings up, maybe have a superspreader event. Yeah, there will not be any audience, unsurprisingly.

The Chaser Report, more news, less often. And that's just about all we have time for in this Delta variant of the Chaser Report. Dan, thank you so much for joining us for the first of your 10 shows. filling in for Charles, although who knows how long he left to have his kids at home. We might have you on for months yet to come. Look, it's great to be here, and if anyone in the eastern suburbs

was thinking about going to horse meat, could they please go to Glebe and just give Charles COVID? That way I can have this job on a longer-term basis. We can butt hope. Dan, what are your plans for the week? I mean, the beautiful weather in Sydney at the moment, the sun's shining, blue skies.

Dom, I'm just going to be out there exercising in groups of no more than 10, and I was going to buy my sixth investment property, but I think I'll put that off until next week. Oh, what an excellent idea. I'm going to go and get a COVID vaccine. I mean, I've already fully vaccinated, but I figure it's a way to live the house.

I don't know many people who've had COVID-19, but I suspect I might wait until COVID-25 comes around. COVID-19 seems to have a lot of bugs. That's true. You can get more news around the clock at the Chaser website, chaser.com. You can follow us on our, socials. You can follow Dan on all the irrational fear socials, by the way as well. They put out a

podcast every single week about the news. And don't forget our gears from road microphones and we are part of the ACAST creator network. See you next time. Bye.