Don't know if anybody on here has read the Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz, apparently in the book which is Fiction and was written in 1981 in the book it was written about a mysterious virus that appeared in the world and started in Wuhan China, it had similarities to pneumonia in 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/05/theres-something-out-there-spread-of-disease

Dirk

I haven't read The Eyes of Darkness, Dirk, but I would go with the explanation that it was a co-incidence, and eerie co-incidence, but a co-incidence none the less.

I HOPE The Guardian isn't changing into a newspaper that includes silly articles. I'll give The Guardian props for not having raised up a pay wall to its site (not yet anyway) whereas many other newspapers have.  There have been some allegations of a minister in the present UK government acting in a bullying fashion towards some civil servants.  (I won't mention any names - as of today 6th Match 2020 it's still in the British media so anyone can look it up if they have sufficient interest). There have been another group of people who have written an open letter defending the minister.  On Sky news this morning in a discussion programme someone seems to be intimating that there was a conspiracy to discredit the minister.  To be fair other folk in the discussion seemed to think an allegation of such a conspiracy doubtful.

Unfortunately even some experts seem to be 'guns for hire' who will write articles for newspapers concurring with what the newspapers want to promulgate.  A "celebrity psychologist" has drawn some criticism from other members of her profession for writing an article detracting the Duchess of Sussex whom she has never met.  https://barthsnotes.com/2020/01/12/celebrity-psychologist-draws-fire-over-manipulative-meghan-article/  Now, I have no idea what Prince Harry's wife's character is like but at the end of the article another psychologist was quoted as saying she had been approached by the media to write matter critical (and not in a positive way) of the Duchess but had refused:-
"UPDATE: A forensic psychologist named Kerry Daynes, who has also has a media profile, says that “I’ve been asked by various media to write/contribute to articles accusing Meghan Markle of manipulation, coercive control, exploiting Harry’s mental health struggles etc. I say no to this:horse:$&!£. Shame others don’t.”  "
People will believe what they want to believe.  I saw something about the Cottingley Fairies hoax and one of the ladies who had been involved in the hoax when she was a youngster (two girls copied pictures (illustrations) of fairies out of a children's book in the early 20th century and took photographs of them and some people believed they really had photographed fairies.  Many years later they admitted it was a hoax but that the believers had WANTED to think the fairies really existed.  One of the ladies said she did see a real fairy ONCE --- I'd take that with a lorry load of salt unless she convinced herself that she had seen a fairy (I personally don't think she saw one).  I think the Cottingley Fairies have been mentioned on Res Historica before.