A Dean Koontz book
from 1981 predicted coronavirus in bizarre coincidence
By Jessica Napoli | Fox News
Coronavirus
Published February 13
Author Dean Koontz eerily predicted the coronavirus outbreak in his 1981 thriller "The Eyes of
Darkness."
The fictional novel tells the story of a Chinese military
lab that creates a new virus to potentially use as a biological weapon during
wartime. The lab is ironically located in Wuhan, China and the made-up virus is
called Wuhan-400.
In the novel, the virus is called the "perfect
weapon" because it only affects humans. It also cannot survive outside the
human body for more than a minute and does not require an
expensive decontamination process once it spreads through a population and
those who contract it.
The coincidence between the book's virus and the actual
coronavirus outbreak is uncanny.
Dean Koontz
published the book in 1981.
Currently, the coronavirus which originated in Wuhan,
China is causing panic throughout the world. On Thursday, officials from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that an American
evacuee from Wuhan who is currently
in Texas was diagnosed with the virus, making it the 15th case
in the United States.
CDC officials told Fox News that there will “likely be additional
cases in the coming days and weeks, including among other people recently
returned from Wuhan.” Though the first 195 evacuees were released on Tuesday,
“more than 600 people who returned on chartered flights from Wuhan remain under
federal quarantine and are being closely monitored to contain the spread of the
virus,” officials added.
Americans were evacuated from China on two chartered
flights which brought them to Texas and Nebraska. Some 250
passengers were reportedly on the flight to Texas while an estimated 70
passengers were on the one to Nebraska.
A medical staffer
works with test systems for the diagnosis of coronavirus, at the Krasnodar
Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology microbiology lab in Krasnodar, Russia. (AP)
The case also marks the first in Texas. The 14 other
cases have been reported across the country, the first of which occurred in a
Washington state man who has since been released from the hospital. Other cases
have been confirmed in California, Wisconsin, Arizona, Massachusetts and
Illinois. No deaths have been reported in the U.S., and the large majority of
cases still remain in China.
Overall, more than 50,000 people have been sickened
globally from the coronavirus while 1,370 have died.
Fox News' Madeline Farber contributed to this report.
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