TikTok comedian Jon-Bernard Kairouz hospitalised for Covid
A TikTok comedian who predicted Covid case numbers before their official release has been infected with the virus and is being treated in hospital.
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A social media star who rose to fame for predicting NSW’s daily Covid numbers on TikTok has now contracted the virus, despite allegedly encouraging an anti-lockdown protest earlier this year.
Jon-Bernard Kairouz is currently in St George Hospital battling Covid.
Police sources confirmed the 24-year-old man had received daily visits from officers at the hospital in Sydney’s south to ensure he remained in isolation.
Kairouz was due to face Bankstown Local Court on Tuesday on charges of attending and encouraging the anti-lockdown rally in Sydney’s CBD in July.
Unable to attend because of his hospitalisation, Kairouz’s solicitor instead entered pleas of not guilty to two counts of breaching Covid-19 public health orders and one count of encouraging the commission of crimes.
Video showed Kairouz in attendance at the July 24 protest and urging on those around him.
“I must say I’ve crunched the numbers, I don’t think cases are going to go up tomorrow,” he told the crowd.
“But from what I’ve calculated there’s over 50,000 people here today.”
He also told the actual crowd of about 3500 in Sydney’s CBD that it was “time for freedom”.
Kairouz made headlines in the early days of the pandemic escalating when he correctly predicted the daily Covid numbers ahead of time on several consecutive days.
Posting the videos on social media, he soon became known as the “TikTok guy”.
His run of accurate predictions eventually came to an end, with Kairouz claiming NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian had deliberately misled the public and that his numbers were correct.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard denied that the government had deliberately “smoked out” Kairouz’s source of information.
He is due to next face court on October 26.
Originally published as TikTok comedian Jon-Bernard Kairouz hospitalised for Covid