Dean Koontz predicted coronavirus outbreak?

[Eldorado]

"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”."

Full monty at Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-coronavirus-koontz-book/partly-false-claima-1981-book-predicted-the-coronavirus-2019-outbreak-idUSKCN20M19I

Edited February 28, 2020 by Eldorado

[+susieice]

Kind of like 'The Wreck of the Titan' by Morgan Robertson supposedly foretold the Titanic disaster. Snopes is saying the similarity ends after the connection to Wuhan. I wonder if anyone has interviewed Koontz yet and what he's saying about this.

https://nypost.com/2020/02/27/did-a-1981-dean-koontz-novel-predict-the-coronavirus/

[+Desertrat56]

All he had to do when he wrote the book was search online for locations of those kinds of labs and pick one.  I think Snopes has it right, coincidence.   I don't think he is one of those authors who does much research for his books.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Desertrat56

[+susieice]

5 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

All he had to do when he wrote the book was search online for locations of those kinds of labs and pick one.  I think Snopes has it right, coincidence.   I don't think he is one of those authors who does much research for his books.

I agree. I've read a lot of books by Dean Koontz, but not this one. Watchers is still a personal favorite. Great book!

[Eldorado]

6 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

All he had to do when he wrote the book was search online for locations of those kinds of labs and pick one.  I think Snopes has it right, coincidence.   I don't think he is one of those authors who does much research for his books.

There was no "online" in 1981 when he wrote it.

[XenoFish]

What if corvid-19 is being spread due to it being on money? 

[+OverSword]

11 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

All he had to do when he wrote the book was search online for locations of those kinds of labs and pick one.  I think Snopes has it right, coincidence.   I don't think he is one of those authors who does much research for his books.

Any author as prolific as Koontz does plenty of research but there was probably no easy way in 1981 to verify the location of Chinese RDNA labs.

[+OverSword]

1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

What if corvid-19 is being spread due to it being on money? 

That's a Frank Herbert book. The White Plague.

[XenoFish]

Just now, OverSword said:

That's a Frank Herbert book. The White Plague.

It's also called green poison in Tom Clancy's The Division. 

Just popped into my head. Art imitates life or life imitates art.

[+Desertrat56]

50 minutes ago, Eldorado said:

There was no "online" in 1981 when he wrote it.

Then he went to the library.  I only read one of his books and it was not my cup of tea so I did not know when he wrote it.

[Tatetopa]

1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

What if corvid-19 is being spread due to it being on money? 

Then I am relatively safe.

[+susieice]

1 minute ago, Tatetopa said:

Then I am relatively safe.

Your risk is very low anyway.

[Tatetopa]

3 minutes ago, susieice said:

Your risk is very low anyway.

Low risk, dire consequences.  I am one of those people who had an unfortunate work exposure to a hazardous biological substance, a fungus that I caught working in sawmills.. Heavy scaring in my lungs makes me prone to flu and pneumonia.    If I do catch it, I will likely be one of the 20% hospitalized or worse.

[+susieice]

1 minute ago, Tatetopa said:

Low risk, dire consequences.  I am one of those people who had an unfortunate work exposure to a hazardous biological substance, a fungus that I caught working in sawmills.. Heavy scaring in my lungs makes me prone to flu and pneumonia.    If I do catch it, I will likely be one of the 20% hospitalized or worse.

Your chances of ever getting it are low. I already went through the political crap between the Dems and Trump. All I can say is if this virus doesn't spread like they say it will, media is going to look real bad. I have alerts for news in my area on my phone and on Facebook. One of the few things I use Facebook for. Most people are already calling them out to knock off the fear mongering. They are losing whatever trust they had left. The cases are travelers and people who came in contact with them. If you travel, get ready for quarantine. Really, 16 cases in 350 million people is far from a pandemic. There have been 0 deaths. It's got a really long way to go. Don't worry.

[Great Old Man]

 

actually, where mentioned pneumonia disease 2020, is another book,

 End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World which published 2008

quite surprising , because both book's mention is authentic true!

 

[Tatetopa]

2 hours ago, susieice said:

Your chances of ever getting it are low. I already went through the political crap between the Dems and Trump. All I can say is if this virus doesn't spread like they say it will, media is going to look real bad. I have alerts for news in my area on my phone and on Facebook. One of the few things I use Facebook for. Most people are already calling them out to knock off the fear mongering. They are losing whatever trust they had left. The cases are travelers and people who came in contact with them. If you travel, get ready for quarantine. Really, 16 cases in 350 million people is far from a pandemic. There have been 0 deaths. It's got a really long way to go. Don't worry.

Thanks.  I am vigilant but not worried.  

Media jumps on everything.  Same with media all over the world and even politics in many countries going through gyrations at this point..

I would rather live in a society where you can filter out the "O my God we are all gonna die," media, than to hear very little at all like in China and not get information you need..

[+and-then]

on 9-11, the first thing I thought of was a Tom Clancy novel called DEBT OF HONOR.  He had a character fly an empty 747 into the Capitol during a joint session of Congress where the president was speaking   This was many years prior to the attack and I wondered if someone hadn't put his scenario into action.

Edited February 29, 2020 by and then

[+Hammerclaw]

I grow weary of Corona Virus hysteria. It's not the freakin' Bubonic Plague. It's just one of many cross species viruses that have come out of China in my lifetime, alone. 

[DingoLingo]

On 2/29/2020 at 7:36 AM, susieice said:

I agree. I've read a lot of books by Dean Koontz, but not this one. Watchers is still a personal favorite. Great book!

Watchers is his best book by far

[XenoFish]

10 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

I grow weary of Corona Virus hysteria. It's not the freakin' Bubonic Plague. It's just one of many cross species viruses that have come out of China in my lifetime, alone. 

I'm beginning to wonder if I was one of the few not worried about this.

[Susanc241]

Here in the U.K. we have a case of confirmed Coronavirus in an elderly man who hasn’t been abroad or in contact with anyone known to be ill or have recently come from abroad.  He must have got it from someone, and these unknown and unknowing carriers will be hardest to restrict the movement of.  You have to know who they are first.  There will always be people who think the precautions advised do not apply to them.  This does, imo, have the potential to get a lot worse.  Let’s hope it doesn’t.  

[+Hammerclaw]

2 hours ago, XenoFish said:

I'm beginning to wonder if I was one of the few not worried about this.

Coronavirus sounds so ominous, weird and scientificky, but it's just the generic name for a family of viruses that's been around for over half a century. Although maybe technically imprecise, just calling it the Wuhan Flu would be more appropriate. If the Chinese have thousands dead, it means they have tens of millions infected they are not admitting to.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Hammerclaw

[XenoFish]

2 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Coronavirus sounds so ominous, weird and scientificky, but it's just the generic name for a family of viruses that's been around for over half a century. Although maybe technically imprecise, just calling it the Wuhan Flu would be more appropriate. If the Chinese have thousands dead, it means they have tens of millions infected they are not admitting to.

I call it Kung Flu, but that's just me. 

Mad cow, bird flu, swine flu, this. What else will I survive? 

[WanderingFool0]

59 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I call it Kung Flu, but that's just me. 

Mad cow, bird flu, swine flu, this. What else will I survive? 

So did the majority of the forum I was banned from for no reason, before I found and joined this forum. I saw many kung flu macros/memes.

I am still in the middle of the road on covid-19. I not running in fear, but I think it's a lot worse than the average flu though. The death rate is high and the infection rate was high and if not for the massive quarantine efforts in china and other countries it very well could have spread world wide and I think then, it would have rivaled the 1918 spanish flu epidemic. From what I have read that flu had a 2.5% mortality rate and covid-19 has a 1.4 - 2.3% mortality rate. The average flu has a 0.1% mortality rate.

That is why I remain moderately concerned.

[+Desertrat56]

35 minutes ago, WanderingFool0 said:

So did the majority of the forum I was banned from for no reason, before I found and joined this forum. I saw many kung flu macros/memes.

I am still in the middle of the road on covid-19. I not running in fear, but I think it's a lot worse than the average flu though. The death rate is high and the infection rate was high and if not for the massive quarantine efforts in china and other countries it very well could have spread world wide and I think then, it would have rivaled the 1918 spanish flu epidemic. From what I have read that flu had a 2.5% mortality rate and covid-19 has a 1.4 - 2.3% mortality rate. The average flu has a 0.1% mortality rate.

That is why I remain moderately concerned.

It has spread world wide from the news I have seen.  It is in the U.S., though, so far only a few cases have been identified, which means there are more out there.  I don't think it should cause a great panic but I think everyone should expect it to show up where ever they live, mainly because of how people travel nowadays.