The TikToker correctly guessed the Covid case numbers in a five-day streak
(Picture: TikTok )A man from New South Wales, Australia, sent TikTok into a frenzy after correctly predicting the number of Coronavirus cases the day before they were released in a questionable five-day streak.
The impressive predictions prompted social media users to conspire their own theories about how Jon-Bernard Kairouz forecasted the case results – before NSW officials had a chance to report on the cases the following day.
The actor and comedian's TikTok’s reached viewers by the millions, with his viral videos racking up to 2.5M views.
Another impatient user commented, “Anyone else here to check the numbers for tomorrow cause they are impatient for 11am.”
While there were an astonishing amount of theories up for debate, Jon-Bernard claimed his figures come down to the power of mathematics. Unfortunately for the TikToker, his streak soon came to a halt on Monday as he experienced an error with one of his ‘equations.’ He wrongly predicted 109 cases when there was, in fact, 98.
The sudden flaw prompted people to believe it was an alleged ‘trap’ to evaluate whether data was being leaked to the TikToker by an insider.
Word is a trap has been set and Jon-Bernard Kairouz’s figure of 109 is incorrect today @SkyNewsAust
— Andrew Clennell (@aclennell) July 19, 2021
Hearing #TikTokGuy is wrong about today's estimate of 109 new cases in NSW. Figure was fed to him to 'smoke out' his source. #nswcovid #nswpol
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) July 19, 2021
Health minister, Brad Hazzard, stepped in on Monday to highlight the alleged leak and how there has been an internal review of how data is stored going forward.
In an official statement, Hazzard said: “Can I say it was a disappointment that something as serious as our messaging to the community in a pandemic, 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.
“And so, Health looked at the issues around that, I saw someone saying on social media that it was a sting, no it wasn’t.
“It was looking at what the issues were and making sure that the system was such that the information could be kept to the appropriate time with messaging to the community … in terms of us giving the important message which goes out at 11 o’clock each day, in a way that the community understands the significance of what we are asking people to do, to keep people safe.”
In response, the TikToker posted an official-looking press release that claimed that the government simply wanted to discredit his work.
— Jon-Bernard Kairouz (@jonbernardk) July 19, 2021
In the statement, Jon-Bernard said: “They claim to have captured the person supposedly leaking the information, through high-level surveillance and trapping, which just disrespects the hard work and the mathematical process conducted by my brothers and I.”
