Stephen King says he's sorry if coronavirus makes you feel like you're living in his 1978 novel The Stand where a virus pandemic kills most of the population
Stephen King has apologized for making people feel like they're living in one of his novels amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The novelist said the COVID-19 outbreak is regularly compared to a virus he created for his 1978 book The Stand due to several similarities including the president claiming there will be a vaccine available soon.
He said its even more uncanny that in another one of his books The Dead Zone, his 'common man' character becomes a world leader much like Donald Trump, and it appears the two books have 'cross-pollinated'.
'It's not very comfortable to be me right now. I keep having people say, "Gee, it's like we're living in a Stephen King story,"' King told NPR. 'And my only response to that is, "I'm sorry."'
The novelist told NPR in an interview Wednesday: 'I keep having people say, "Gee, it's like we're living in a Stephen King story,"' King told NPR . 'And my only response to that is, "I'm sorry"'
Pictured is a scene from The Stand (1994) TV show which is based on the Stephen King pandemic novel
He added: 'We had a president who was very much in denial about this. Say, from January to March where the president is saying don't worry about it, it's no more than the common cold and his cheerleaders on the right side of the political spectrum are jumping in... there's not just one Typhoid Mary who is spreading this...
'The thing that is not addressing when he says "I'm not going to wear a mask but maybe you should", is that you don't wear a mask because you're afraid somebody is going to make you sick, you wear a mask because you might be a carrier and make them sick.'
In the post-apocalyptic, horror and science fiction thriller, a deadly influenza virus known as Captain Trips is created in an army lab and triggers a worldwide pandemic.
There is no cure or vaccine for the disease, which ends up killing 99 per cent of the world's population.
The virus also causes the complete collapse of society, prompts the military to censor information about the killer virus, and leaves only a handful of survivors in a state of confusion and grief.
The novelist said the COVID-19 outbreak is regularly compared to a virus he created for his 1978 book The Stand
It originally was turned into miniseries starring Gary Senise in 1994, and is now being adapted into a ten-episode, limited series for CBS Access starring James Marsden.
Much like Bill Gates and others who warned a virus outbreak could devastate the globe, King added in the NPR interview that an epidemic was 'bound to happen'.
'There was never any question that in our society, where travel is a staple of daily life, that sooner or later, there was going to be a virus that was going to communicate to the public at large,' King said.
The 72-year-old admitted that despite creating panic in his own stories, he is coping during the coronavirus pandemic by keeping busy.
He explained that focusing on writing is helping him avoid overthinking about coronavirus.
'The short answer to that is I'm not. What I'm living with and what I suspect a lot of people are living with right now is cabin fever. ... But to be in the house day after day, all I can say is I've made wonderful progress on a novel, because there's really not too much to do and it's a good way to get away from the fear,' King confessed.
'It's not panic. It's not terror that I feel, that I think most people feel, it's a kind of gnawing anxiety where you say to yourself, I shouldn't go out. If I do go out, I might catch this thing or I might give it to somebody else.'
While the changing going on in the world have given King some food for thought, the novelist shared that it has meant altering his writing.
Due to the unexpected pandemic, King has had to change some of the situations in an upcoming book.
In King's book The Dead Zone, the 'common man' character becomes a world leader and in The Stand the president says the population will have a vaccine in a week. King said it's almost like the books have 'cross-pollinated'
King said: 'We had a president who was very much in denial about this. Say, from January to March where the president is saying don't worry about it, it's no more than the common cold.'
King continued: 'The thing that is not addressing when he says "I'm not going to wear a mask but maybe you should", is that you don't wear a mask because you're afraid somebody is going to make you sick, you wear a mask because you might be a carrier and make them sick.' Dr. Deborah Birx, Ambassador and White House coronavirus response coordinator, holds a 3M N95 mask. Vice President Mike Pence appears right on March 5
'I set [the book I'm working on] in the year 2020 because I thought, "OK, when I publish it, if it's in 2021, it will be like in the past, safely in the past." And then this thing came along, and I immediately looked back through the copy that I'd written and I saw that one of the things that was going on was that two of my characters had gone on a cruise. ... And I thought, "Well, no, I don't think anybody's going on cruise ships this year."' King revealed.
'And so I looked at everything and I immediately set the book in 2019, where people could congregate and be together and the story would work because of that.'
In the US coronavirus has infected more than 35,500 people and left over 14,800 dead.
King said COVID-19 will leave a lasting mark on the current generation.
'For me, as a guy who is in his 70s now, I can remember my mother talking about the Great Depression,' King continued. 'It made a scar. It left trauma behind.
'And I think that ... my granddaughter — who can't see her friends, can only Skype them once in a while. She's stuck in the house ... when [she's grown and] her children say, 'Oh my God, I'm so bored, I can't go out!' ... [my granddaughter] is going to say, 'You should have been around in 2020, because we were stuck in the house for months at a time! We couldn't go out. We were scared of germs!'
