Since the start of the global pandemic, a lot of alleged predictions have surfaced online. One of them is a passage from the 1981 "Farmer's Almanac" which describes the pandemic eerily.
The 2020 prediction
The controversial passage reads as follows: "In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely."
Since 1972, The "Farmer's Almanac," also known as "Old Farmer's Almanac," has been published in the United States annually. Another book "Farmers' Almanac" was published in 1818, and they contain weather predictions, recipes, planting schedules, and more.
All the forecasts on the book focus on weather data. Now the question in everyone's mind is, did the "Farmer's Almanac" from 1981 predict the events of 2020? The answer is no.
The passage that was quoted and is currently circulating online is, for one, not from the "Farmer's Almanac" book. The passage is, in fact, from a book called "End of Days" Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World" and it was written by Sylvia Browne.
Sylvia Browne is an American author who claimed to be a psychic. Even though the passage of Browne's book was vague, it caused a meltdown on social media. Although some believe that the author was able to predict the pandemic, there were skeptics who stated that it was out of pure luck and chance.
Did Browne predict the future?
Browne's book was written five years after the SARS epidemic, which was around 2002 to 2003, which means that she likely based her prediction on the epidemic. Browne passed away in 2013, but during her life she was criticized for false predictions.
In 2006, she said that a group of miners who were trapped at Sago mine in West Virginia after a mine explosion would not be found, but days later the miners were rescued and found alive. Another famous name has predicted pandemic.
In 2015, Bill Gates held a TED Talk and said that the world is not ready to face another pandemic. In 2018, a discussion about epidemics was hosted by the New England Journal of Medicine and the Massachusetts Medical Society, and Gates said that the pandemic could happen in the next few years.
Gates also presented a simulation designed by the Institute for Disease Modeling and it was found that a new flu that is the same as the 1918 pandemic will most likely kill around 30 million people in just a span of 6 months.
The world is interconnected and the likelihood that a disease will appear that could spread around the world was very high, and it could either happen naturally or it could be created as a weaponized disease.
In April, Gates said in an interview with the Financial Times that a viral outbreak may happen every 20 years. The coronavirus pandemic will cause governments to have deep antiviral libraries, standby diagnostics, and early warning systems.
