On April 6, Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, head of Rights Defenders’ Union, posted a video on his Facebook page with a caption: “An episode from a 2018 South Korean TV series headlined “Someone Behind Me” – announcement about coronavirus.” Nikoloz Mzhavanadze supposes that the episode from the South Korean TV series “Terius Behind Me” predicts coronavirus.
The video posted by Nikoloz Mzhavanadze is manipulative and creates a perception that the emergence of COVID-19 was announced in the South Korean TV series released in 2018, even though coronavirus diseases other than COVID-19 are mentioned in the TV series.
Which particular coronavirus was mentioned in the South Korean TV series in 2018?
Besides Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Twitter users also spread some episodes from the South Korean TV series “Terius Behind Me” virally. Snopes and British newspaper The Sun prepared materials about the issue, clarifying which particular coronavirus was mentioned in the TV series.
One of the characters of the TV series, a doctor really mentions coronavirus, noting that severe respiratory diseases, SARS and MERS, which first emerged in 2002 and 2012, respectively, fall in the same family of coronaviruses. The series, however, says nothing about the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. (neworleansathleticclub)
It should also be noted that not only the fictional virus mentioned in the TV series differs from COVID-19, but it absolutely differs from other coronaviruses, because according to the TV series, it has a 90% mortality rate. A scene describes how a coronavirus has been mutated by terrorists to be used as a bioweapon.
The current fatality rate of COVID-19 sits at about 3.4% worldwide and 1.8% – in South Korea. Moreover, scientists have conducted analysis of genomic data of COVID-19, according which the coronavirus has originated through natural processes and its genetic data do not show that COVID-19 is a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. As for coronaviruses, they exist for decades; thus, COVID-19 has originated from coronavirus, but not all coronaviruses cause COVID-19.
