The information and stories surrounding the outbreak of the COVID-19 range from the
statistical to the bizarre.
Vietnam has reported that its exports in the month of January fell—collapsed might be a better word —by 17.4 percent over the same period in 2019. That was not a surprise. Here is another: “USPS [United States Postal Service] will be temporarily suspending the guarantee on priority mail express international destined for China and Hong Kong.”
The leading cruise ship operator in Asia, Carnival Corp., reported that it was forced to suspend all cruise operations from ports in China and across Asia until the end of April. Carnival’s Diamond Princess, moored in Japan, has 218 confirmed cases of the virus.
The Holland America Line ship, MS Westerdam, has finally been allowed to dock in Cambodia after being denied berthing in Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan. Sun Hung Kai Properties, the largest mall owner in Hong Kong, said it would reduce February rent by up to 50 percent for most of its tenants.
In an effort to get the economy moving, Beijing authorities “allowed” one factory to reopen this past week. However, one worker tested positive of the COVID-19 the next day. The factory shut down and its more than 200 employees are quarantined, unable to return home. People in Hong Kong have been standing in long lines at supermarkets for supplies, from masks to toilet paper, with growing rumors that shipments could be cut off from the mainland.
Published in 1898, American short story author Morgan Robertson wrote The Wreck of the Titan. The story features the fictional ocean liner Titan, which sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. Does that sound familiar? The Titan sank in April in the North Atlantic Ocean, and there were not enough lifeboats for all the passengers. RMS Titanic sank in almost identical circumstances on April 15, 1912.
Dean Koontz is an American author who writes “suspense thrillers.” He has published over 105 novels and has sold over 450 million copies of his books, also under various pen names. In 2008, he was the world’s sixth-most highly paid author at $25 million annually.
In 1981 he wrote a novel with the following plot. A mother sends her son on a camping trip with a leader and a group of friends. Every camper, the leader, and the bus driver die with no explanation. During her grief she begins receiving mysterious messages that the boy is not dead. She begins a quest to find out what happened.
The story continues that two years before, a Chinese scientist who defected to the US gives details of China’s most dangerous new biological weapon: It is perfect as it affects only humans, is 100 percent fatal, cannot survive outside a living human body, and dies with the infected person. The virus is named “Wuhan-400” as it was created in a military laboratory outside of the city of Wuhan.
The US military had been studying the virus and one of its scientists contaminated himself while he was working alone in the lab and then left to go home. Mark Twain wrote, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
Image credits: Jimbo Albano