People are freaking out over a book called End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World, written by Sylvia Browne in 2008, that purportedly predicted the coronavirus outbreak this year.

The excerpt from the book reads,

In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes resisting all known treatments.

The symptoms all sound pretty familiar, the year is spot-on, and it even says the illness is resistant to treatments. 

However, considering this was written at the time of the SARS outbreak in 2008, it is also possible that this was an educated guess, based on previous outbreak patterns.

Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrives, attack again ten years later and then disappear completely.

The entire bit has people on the internet scrambling to understand whether this person actually can predict the future, or if the whole thing is just pure coincidence.

Snopes, a site dedicated to fact-finding and debunking, has said that the book and the excerpt are definitely real. However, they say it was more of a random claim than a real prediction.

We don’t know what’s true, but it’s definitely caught people’s attention at a time when almost anything related to this illness is catching headlines.