A fiction novel that predicted COVID-19-like pandemic!

Bhubaneswar: A lethal virus, one carrier and scores of death creating mayhem across the globe. With no cure in hands, quarantine centres, self- isolation and continual lockdown in several countries become the new normal for mankind.

We are talking about a pandemic fiction novel by Pulitzer Prize recipient Lawrence Wright, ‘The End of October.’  Doesn’t it paint an astonishingly spitting image of the current COVID-19 pandemic!

The storyline is based on the outbreak of a fatal strain of novel coronavirus called Kongoli flu that was traced from an internment camp in Indonesia. The infection drew the government’s attention after the camp men subsequently died of a mysterious fever.

The plot turns spooky after one of the infected men from the camp heads to Mecca for Hajj, spreading the infection among millions of worshippers who congregated there. And thus, the chain of infection starts.

Mortality spiked, economies crumbled and in the midst of all of it an American doctor-cum-researcher Henry Parsons set out in search of a miraculous cure to save mankind.

Did he find the cure? Did the infection contained? How long did it take for things to fall back to normal? Did normalcy return at all?

Read on the novel to find out!

It needs to be mentioned that Wright had done extensive studies for years to write this book. He interviewed scientists and epidemiologists for this and figured that they were anticipating an epidemic like COVID-19 pandemic in the times to come.