A book by a self-proclaimed psychic has made a huge sales after claiming a global pandemic akin to coronavirus would occur “around 2020”.
The psychic Sylvia Browne, published the book, End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World in 2008, writing:
“In around 2020, a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments.”
Kim Kardashian West tweeted the excerpt, stating her sister Kourtney had sent her the image. The tweet racked up thousands of retweets, which in turn saw the book make headlines.
According to Newsweek, the book has seen its sale surge on Amazon and it has entered the top 10 E-book charts for Kindle in the UK and US.
After the excerpt went viral, many dismissed the prediction as too vague, with Centre for Inquiry‘s Benjamin Radford debunking Browne’s comments.
“So what did Browne predict would happen sometime during those years?” Radford writes. “Covid-19 is not ‘a severe pneumonia-like illness,’ though it can in some cases lead to pneumonia. Most of those infected (about 80 per cent) have mild symptoms and recover just fine, and the disease has a mortality rate of between 2 per cent and 4 per cent.”
Radford added: “[The second sentence] is false, at least as of now. Covid-19 has not ‘suddenly vanished as quickly as it arrived,’ and even if it eventually does, its emergence pattern would have to be compared with other typical epidemiology data to know whether it’s ‘baffling’.”
Browne, who had a cult following right up to her death in 2013, was known for making many predictions that went on to be proven false.
