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Stephen King slams leaders’ lack of preparedness amid coronavirus chaos

By April 3, 2020Authors, Literature, News

Stephen King has slammed world leaders for their lack of preparedness amid the coronavirus chaos.

As many have already pointed out, there are some similarities between some works of fiction and today’s events. Stephen King’s The Stand features a viral pandemic that wipes out 99.98% of the world’s population, thankfully the coronavirus isn’t quite that terrible, but people still found some tenuous similarities. One Twitter user agreed that the virus itself isn’t comparable but the response to the virus from certain world leaders certainly is.

This week, Stephen King has been interviewed on television via webcam, and explained his dismay and bafflement at the reaction to the pandemic by his own country’s president.

“Just in the last three or four weeks people are saying to me, ‘We are living in a Stephen King world,’ and boy, all I can say is I wish we weren’t,” he told CNN.

King has always been unapologetically outspoken about the president of America, and the inaction and underperforming since even before the crisis began has been “almost impossible to comprehend”, according to the author.

“This has been waiting in the wings for a long, long time. I wrote The Stand about a pandemic that wipes out most of the human race, and thank God this one isn’t that bad, but I wrote that in 1979 and ever since then this has just been waiting to happen. The fact that nobody really seemed prepared still mystifies me.

I remember back in the 70s when Republicans laughed at Jimmy Carter as being indecisive and wishy-washy. The president we have now, and Ron DeSantis here in Florida, these are supposed to be go-to-it guys, the guy you want in charge when something really goes wrong because they don’t waffle, they don’t wishy-washy.”

There is some good news for fans, though. The publication of his next book, If It Bleeds, has been brought forward two weeks to 28th of April, to keep self-isolating readers happy.

King noted that this new publication date is the same as John Grisham’s new novel, Camino Winds.

“I want to talk to the publisher about maybe doing a two-for-one,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be cool, a double feature?”

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