Coronavirus, the "prophecy" of Dean Koontz

The Chinese Coronavirus? Already conceived and written in a novel of forty years ago. We haven't talked about anything else on the web for hours, and even with some inaccuracies. The thriller book in question is The eyes of darkness and was published in 1981 by Dean Koontz, the American author of numerous bestsellers. The original pages of several hard copies are circulating online in photos with the underlines on page 333. "Wuhan-400 is a lethal weapon (...) around 2020 a serious pneumonia will spread all over the world (...) able to resist to all known treatments, ”it says. A few paragraphs above and here is the origin of the Wuhan-400 which frighteningly recalls what seems to have happened recently in China: "A Chinese scientist named Li Chen fled to the United States, carrying a diskette copy of the most important Chinese biological weapon. and dangerous of the decade. They call it 'Wuhan-400' because it was developed in their RDNA laboratories near the city of Wuhan and was the 400th viable strain of microorganisms created at that research center. "

The analogies are disconcerting, even if, as several Chinese newspapers point out, the 81 version of the novel, unpublished in Italy, has undergone a fundamental variation. The virus was not originally the Wuhan-400 but the "Gorki-400", more in line with the era of full cold war between the US and the USSR. Only from 1989 onwards, reports the South China Morning Post, attaching a more recent 1996 copy of the page in question, did the virus turn into "Wuhan-400". To throw water on the fire is the anti-foul blogger Paolo Attivissimo.

Koontz in Everett lives a difficult adolescence in poverty and under the abuses of an alcoholic father who soon leads him to love reading, almost to escape with fantasy from a harsh reality: the dream of becoming a writer was born. At the age of eight he began to write and sell his work to family members.

Complete his studies at Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University), where he converts to the Catholic faith. Her first occupation is in the Appalachian Poverty Program, a support program that deals with helping poor children in education. The post Koontz occupies has become vacant because his predecessor had been attacked by the children he taught, ending up in hospital. Koontz is motivated and does not give up.

The desire to become a writer is growing stronger. He starts writing at night and on weekends, even when he later leaves the support program and finds work as an English teacher in a suburban school.

It is then that his wife Gerda proposes a pact to him: she is willing to keep it for five years as long as she becomes a writer. If he does not succeed in that period of time, he will no longer succeed. Koontz succeeds and establishes himself as a writer, while his wife gives up her job to manage her husband's affairs.

Koontz, his wife and their dog Trixie live in Southern California.

What is a Coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses known to cause diseases ranging from the common cold to more serious diseases such as Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

They are positive-stranded RNA viruses, with a crown-like appearance under an electron microscope. The Orthocoronavirinae subfamily of the Coronaviridae family is classified into four coronavirus (CoV) genera: Alpha-, Beta-, Delta-- and Gammacoronavirus. The betacoronavirus genus is further separated into five subgenres (including Sarbecovirus).

Coronaviruses were identified in the mid-1960s and are known to infect humans and certain animals (including birds and mammals). The primary target cells are the epithelial cells of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract.