Since February 2020, the world is plunged into uncertainty due to the massive destruction brought by COVID-19 to humanity. Except for Antarctica, all six continents have infected individuals recorded. The World Health Organization (WHO) already declared it as pandemic and considered as deadlier than SARS-COV, another health crisis happened in 2003 that also originated from China.
This latest strain of coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, the center for commercial and trade of Hubei province in China. It was believed to have transmitted to human from bats or snakes and caused severe respiratory disease.
Despite confirmation from health experts and WHO that this virus was caused by eating wild species, there are some who propagated that it could be a conspiracy theory developed by the United States. Well, because people are naturally gossipers and love to develop a silly theory out of an emergency.
Even it is sounded stupid.
Following the spread of COVID-19, fake news spreaders claimed it could have been a bio-warfare accidentally released from a remote laboratory in Wuhan or a biological weapon secretly shipped by the U.S Army to China.
As funny as the theory is, the nature of this story sounded like a plot straight from the pages of a fantasy novel. Perhaps, the fake news spreaders got the idea from THE STAND, a post-apocalyptic horror-fantasy book published in 1978 written by the master of the horror novel, Stephen King.
THE STAND centers on a pandemic of a flu-like virus that purportedly developed to wipe the world's population. It tells a vision of a planet's destruction following a virus that was accidentally spread. it started when a man escaped from a remote laboratory maintained by the U.S Army and carrying with him a strain of influenza called Captain Trips. It was later revealed the virus is a weaponized superflu known as "Project Blue".
The virus eventually killed 99.4% of the world's population with the remaining 0.6% fighting for their survival. To get a stronghold of life, they need to cling to two powerful creatures: Randall Flagg, an aide of darkness, and Mother Abagail, a personification of "light" who received visions from God. These two forces fought for the FINAL STAND to revive the lost generation, a fight between good and evil.
So this is where all the conspiracy theory about COVID-19 came from because people by nature love gossip and fiction to escape from reality.
Stephen King already made an appeal to the public through his twitter account to stop comparing COVID-19 to The Stand's Project Blue because while the latter is fiction, the former is a deadly disease that the world needs to fight to eradicate.
There is at least one parallel between The Stand and COVID-19, the fight between good and evil. If we side on the good and the vision of light, we can get through this biggest health crisis to hit the world since SARS-COV and MERS-COV. If we continue to cling to the darkness personification by abusing the wild species and nature, we are at the losing end.
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