Did a Chinese Novel predict Coronavirus 40 years ago? ’Wuhan-400’ leaves twitter baffled

Mangalore Today News Network

Bejing, Feb 17, 2020: Amidst the deadly outbreak of Coronavirus whose death toll has now risen to 1770 in China, an odd fictional reference of the outbreak with a 1981 crime thriller novel has left the Internet scratching their heads.

A sudden revelation of a fictional coincidence from The Eyes of Darkness by bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz, has left netizens confused. Many have since ended up drawing a parallel between the present fatal COVID-19 and the fictional ’Wuhan-400’ mentioned in the book that had the power of wiping out a population almost 40 years back, Yahoo reported.

 

The excerpt from the book which was shared on Twitter mentions a Chinese scientist Li Chen, who "defected to the US, carrying a diskette record of China’s most important and dangerous and new biological weapon in a decade."

The novel goes on to term the Wuhan-400 the "perfect weapon" as it "afflicts only human beings and no other living creatures can carry it."

The excerpt further mentions that "the Chinese could use Wuhan-400 to wipe out a city and a country, and then there wouldn’t be any need for them to conduct a tricky and an expensive decontamination before they moved in and took over the conquered territory."

Twitter user, @DarrenPlymouth took to the micro blogging site to share the excerpt and said, "It’s a strange world we live in. #coronavirus #COVID19 #Wuhan."

Indeed, it was ’strange’ for netizens to spot the overt similarities between the two viruses, both of which carry their names after Wuhan, the epicenter behind the virus outbreak. They were quick enough to draw other facts and fictions to the excerpt and expressed their views over the matter.

While there are similarities, there is absolutely no evidence to link coronavirus to a weapon of biological destruction and the viral comparison may just be part of general hysteria against the epidemic.

Meanwhile, a 12-member team of World Health Organisation experts began assisting their Chinese counterparts to control the virus. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said international experts were now on the ground in China to understand the outbreak and inform the next steps in the global response.