Fact or Fiction? Did a 1981 Chinese Novel Really Predict the Coronavirus Outbreak?
A theory widely shared on social media claims that American author Dean Koontz predicted the 2019-2020 Coronavirus outbreak in 1981. Posts featuring the cover of “The Eyes of Darkness” book and a page in which Koontz allegedly describes the coronavirus in his novel have at least 39,000 shares and at least 2,000 retweets on Twitter as of February 27, 2020.
Most of the claims circulating on social media show the book’s cover and a page in the book mentioning a virus called “Wuhan-400”. The widely circulated photo of Koontz’s book page includes some highlighted text reading: “They call the stuff ‘Wuhan-400’ because it was developed in a at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan, and It was the four-hundredth viable strain of man-made microorganisms created at that reaserch center”
Some claims circulating also include an additional page that mentions the year 2020 and the outbreak of a “severe pneumonia-like illness”.
This is partly false. While it is true that Koontz wrote about a fictional virus in his novel and that its name “Wuhan-400” refers the Chinese city in which the 2019 Coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) actually started, the illness in his book doesn’t share more traits with COVID-19.
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/did-chinese-novel-the-eyes-of-darkness-predict-the-coronavirus-outbreak-in-1981-2525919.html