In March 2026, an X user resurfaced a supposed 2013 post on the platform that read, "Corona virus....its coming," receiving millions of views (archived). Some users in the comments appeared to believe the 2013 post predicted the COVID-19 pandemic that officially began in March 2020.
Similar claims about the post previously spread on several other platforms, including YouTube (archived), Instagram and Reddit.
The post is real. X user @Marco_Acortes posted "Corona virus....its coming" on the site then known as Twitter on June 3, 2013 (archived):
Dozens of commenters appeared shocked or confused as to how someone in 2013 could have seemingly predicted the COVID-19 pandemic, commonly referred to as "corona" or "coronavirus," which killed at least 7 million people worldwide between January 2020 and November 2024.
We were unable to reach the user for comment regarding what influenced or inspired the post, and the account does not show any activity after 2016.
However, there's no reason to believe the user was referring to COVID-19 in particular. The term "coronavirus" has been in the medical lexicon since 1968, when scientists first named a group of viruses based on their microscopic crownlike structure. Scientists first observed diseases caused by viruses of this type in chickens in the early 1930s. It wasn't until the 1960s that researchers discovered the first strains of coronavirus in humans, and in 1968, an "informal group of virologists" submitted their findings to the scientific journal Nature, coining the term:
COVID-19 is also not the only deadly form of coronavirus found in humans. Ten years before the X post appeared, an outbreak of a strain of coronavirus in the same genus as the virus that causes COVID-19 killed 774 people from more than two dozen countries.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, scientists have observed seven coronavirus diseases in humans (they typically manifest in mild, coldlike symptoms), though only three have had severe pathogenic impact on populations over the past few decades: an initial outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) from 2002-03, periodic flare-ups of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) since 2012 and COVID-19 (SARS-2-CoV), which resulted in the 2020 pandemic that lasted just over three years.
In June 2013, when the user wrote the X post, there was a fresh outbreak of MERS in Saudi Arabia. News releases by the World Health Organization in June 2013 detailed additional cases that spread around the same time the post appeared online. While it's impossible to know what exactly inspired the user behind the post to warn his followers about coronavirus, the news reports coming out of the Middle East around the same time may have influenced the post.
After the first SARS-CoV outbreak beginning in 2002, the user was also not the only one warning about the future impact of coronavirus.
Even before 2013, scientists claimed that a coronavirus pandemic could occur again at a much larger scale, given the right conditions. For example, one scientific study (archived) — initially submitted in 2012 — claimed SARS-CoV originated from bats, and possibly still existed in humans. "These existing but undetected SARS-CoVs have a large potential to evolve into highly virulent strains when favorable climate conditions occur, highlighting a potential risk for the reemergence of SARS," the study read.
In sum, the 2013 post that read, "Corona virus....its coming," is authentic, and while it's not possible to know what exactly inspired the user to write it, humans have known about coronaviruses since the early 1930s — first in animals, then in humans and eventually on the scale of a global pandemic. Scientific studies published before the X post appeared warned of the potential impact of SARS-CoV potentially reemerging, making it possible the X user saw such reports to reach his conclusion.