A few weeks after an outbreak of hantavirus occurred aboard a cruise ship in April 2026, an internet rumor emerged that a tweet published in 2022 accurately predicted such an outbreak would occur.
The hantavirus, described by Mayo Clinic as a "rare infectious disease," is mainly transmitted to humans via rodent waste. The Associated Press reported that health officials tracking the shipboard outbreak were "confident" there was no greater risk of an epidemic because the disease does not easily spread from person to person.
Users on social media began sharing their discovery of the alleged 2022 tweet on May 6, 2026. All it said was, "2023: Corona ended … 2026: Hantavirus."
This person has only posted 4 times…
All in a week in 2022…
Their bio says 'reads the future'…
This post says:
2023: Corona Ended
2026: Hantavirus
It's the only post like this.
Grok confirmed it has not been edited since '22.
Weird. https://t.co/XdqouXPwum— Jordan Crowder (@digijordan) May 7, 2026
Given the ongoing news coverage of the shipboard hantavirus emergency, which had been responsible for three deaths as of this writing, the apparent "prediction" spread quickly.
The tweet, posted by @iamasoothsayer on what was then known as Twitter, is authentic, judging by all available evidence, so we have rated the claim it was posted in 2022 as true. As of this writing, it has been reposted more than 143,000 times.
Snopes tracked down a June 11, 2022, archived record of the tweet on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, confirming it's genuine and was posted publicly nealy four years before the hantavirus outbreak.
To say the post "predicted" a 2026 hantavirus outbreak is a stretch, however.
The @iamasoothsayer account consisted of only four public posts and one reply as of this writing, all posted in June 2022. The bio section of the account described the user as an "astrologist" who "reads the future," but it's unknown whether this description was present before the hantavirus post became popular.
It's possible the user who owns the account updated the bio section after the fact to make it appear as though they had intentionally predicted the future, when it was much more likely the timing was a coincidence. Snopes made attempts to contact the owner of the account and we will update this article if we get a response.
Another X user theorized the @iamasoothsayer account could have posted "thousands of random predictions" then deleted the irrelevant posts after one prediction happened to come true, in an attempt to appear a legitimate prognosticator.
We couldn't substantiate this theory, but regardless of the methodology or intent, the tweet was authentically posted to Twitter in 2022.