Stephen King coronavirus prophecy: Author reportedly predicted COVID-19 in his book ‘The Sand’

Renowned author Stephen King has been making headlines amid the coronavirus pandemic after his fans claimed that he might have predicted the deadly illness in the book “The Sand.”

In the fictional novel, a super-flu called Captain Trips travels the world to spread the disease. On Twitter, those who have read “The Sand” speculated on its connection and similarity with the coronavirus outbreak.

“For anyone who cares, I actually photographed the 4 pages of The Stand where King describes community contagion pretty accurately. (Note that his disease, Captain Trips, was far more virulent than our virus, Captain Trumps),” one Twitter user wrote.

“Referring to COVID-19 as Captain Trips until further notice,” another King fan said.

“#COVID19 @StephenKing I’m not saying this is the big one. But everyone I know is having the same dream - an old Black woman strumming a guitar, and a dark man chasing us through a cornfield. #CaptainTrips,” another person tweeted.

King took notice of the ongoing discussions about his book but he denied that he predicted the coronavirus.

“No, coronavirus is NOT like THE STAND. It’s not anywhere near as serious. It’s eminently survivable. Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions,” King tweeted.

Based on the author’s statement, Captain Trips is far worse than the coronavirus since there was not a single survivor in “The Stand.”

Meanwhile, author Dean Koontz’s book “The Eye of Darkness” also made a very peculiar reference to the coronavirus. In his novel, Koontz mentioned a killer virus called Wuhan-400. Wuhan is the city were COVID-19 originated.

However, this is unlikely another prophecy after readers realized that the 1981 novel did not actually predict the coronavirus. According to CNN, the killer virus that was mentioned in the original print of the book was actually called Gorki-400. It was only changed to Wuhan-400 in 1989.

It's true that the current coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China. But the idea that the virus was created in a lab is actually a conspiracy theory that originated from unverified social media accounts and has since been widely dismissed by scientists from both China and the West,” the publication said.