Birdwatch Note Rating
2025-08-25 15:00:43 UTC - HELPFUL
Rated by Participant: 15D49F6E9AEC1FCD47D631698519E1A2224F1AA93966ACE80B72F40E2F2800B0
Participant Details
Original Note:
Dean Koontz never predicted COVID-19. His fictional ‘Wuhan-400’ bioweapon only shared a name with the city. The 2020 illness passage is from Sylvia Browne’s End of Days, not Koontz’s The Eyes of Darkness, & has little in common with the real coronavirus outbreak. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dean-koontz-predicted-coronavirus/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/02/fact-check-1981-dean-koontz-book-didnt-predict-covid-19/3124328001/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/partly-false-claima-1981-book-predicted-the-coronavirus-2019-outbreak-idUSKCN20M18P/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/26/viral-image/book-end-days-described-illness-2020-not-wuhan-400/ https://www.altnews.in/no-dean-koontzs-1981-novel-did-not-predict-coronavirus-emerging-from-china/ https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3051619/china-wasnt-original-villain-book-predicting-coronavirus https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/a-novel-published-in-1981-did-not-predict-the-2019-coronavirus/ https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-dean-koontz-novel-predicted-coronavirus
All Note Details