Declared as a global health emergency by WHO, the Coronavirus outbreak has claimed around 1800 lives in China. The epicenter of the virus is a Chinese city, Wuhan, from where it has spread to almost 25 countries.
Recently, an excerpt from the novel, The Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz, started doing rounds on social media and suggested that the author predicted this kind of virus in China, 40 years ago.

A Twitter user brought this to the notice of everyone on social media. He posted the cover of a book and shared an excerpt from it that mentions the virus Wuhan-400 in it.
It’s a strange world we live in.#coronavirus #COVID19 #Wuhan pic.twitter.com/WkjbK4zGaW
— Darren of Plymouth 🇬🇧 (@DarrenPlymouth) February 16, 2020
The excerpt calls Wuhan-400, the perfect weapon. The one that affects only human beings. Further, it reads:
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.

A few fake images from the book are also being circulated on social media. We downloaded the PDF of the book to verify the excerpt and it’s just impossible to not think about the similarities.
Netizens were also shocked to see this reference to Wuhan virus in the book and the eerie similarities it has with the Coronavirus.
What ?? pic.twitter.com/jSDeE96VI6
— Shubhi (@MishraShubhs) February 17, 2020
Holy shit! I remember this book!
— Truth Bomber (@TChef76) February 17, 2020
Omg….. I remember that series. Scared the absolute life out of me when I was younger!! 😵
— Sea Haze 🎨 We’re free 🇬🇧🥂🎉🔱🏴WTO (@seahaze55) February 17, 2020
I said I suspected it was a biological weapon to be used as a form of population control!
— Dr. Sharon Richert (@srichert49) February 16, 2020
Read most of Dean Koontz books and enjoyed how descriptive they were. This, however, is a little too close to the 🦴 😱
— Stephen Wayman (@Swaydogg) February 16, 2020
It’s not strange, if the writer has a sense of history and knows China: Wuhan was also the starting point for the 1911 revolts and that spread more or less around the same axes as the virus now. Wuhan has been the heart of country wide public transportation even before HSR.
— Jeffrey Broer (@jebbery) February 17, 2020
All the writers including myself say that fiction is a reality in another dimension. Guess sometimes that dimensional barrier has been broken.
— Itai Schwartz (@itai_schwartz) February 17, 2020
I believe any thing we write will happen one day
— Hisham Saeed (@999mbz) February 16, 2020
Incredible coincidence
— Le (@tinkerbell424) February 16, 2020
Clearly this can not be a coincidence 🧐🧐🧐
— A.L. Sanders (@lovelly_sanders) February 17, 2020
Oh
— Farheen javid (@jfarrheen) February 18, 2020
My
God
Maybe it’s not juz a co incidence and these Chinese scientists actually read this novel and formed a novel corona virus…who knows only Almighty knowsss…
I just realized how right your statement is in a sense…. remember the movie Sphere? Samuel L. Jackson was “reading” 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and it was actually happening. I think our thoughts and minds are a lot more powerful than we actually realize.
— Intellect Of Absolem (@IAbsolem) February 16, 2020
Eerie!!! Now this book is out of stock
— NinaT (@MysticallyNina) February 17, 2020
Divine comedy. Life is a jumble of archetypical stories retold countless times w infinite variations
— Haeli05 (@haeli05) February 16, 2020
Well, if it’s not just coincidence, it’s either a prophecy or bioterrorism. It’s easy to predict the future if you’re the one causing it. Wow, I feel like a Dan Brown novel right now. 😂😂
— AbhiMKoshy (@Emmereve) February 17, 2020
While there is no evidence of the Coronavirus being a biological weapon and we do not know the context in which these lines were written, the only way to learn the truth is by reading the aforementioned book.
The spread of the Coronavirus is tragic and who knows if the book can give us some insights into it.