Stephen King worries about ‘nightmare scenario’ where coronavirus returns each year ‘more lethal than ever’

‘I can imagine germs as big as wagon wheels, crawling up my arms,’ the novelist said

Stephen King has revealed that he is worried about a "nightmare scenario" for the coronavirus pandemic, in which the virus returns each year, "more lethal than ever".

The veteran horror novelist made the comments on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, when he was asked whether the pandemic was playing out the way he would have imagined it.

"I wrote a book called The Stand in 1975 or '76, and I'm still apologising for it 40 years later," he said. "People will come along, and say through their little masks, I feel like I'm living in a Stephen King story. My response is: 'I'm sorry for that'."

He explained that he had developed the idea for the book by consulting a medical expert, who gave him a hypothetical pandemic scenario based on the flu.

"My fear, about the coronavirus is that we may get things back to normal, and then the virus mutates and comes back," he continued. "Which leaves two possibilities."

"One is that it comes back much weaker, and is not much of a problem. But the nightmare scenario, which of course is where my mind goes - I'm sorry, but it does - is that it comes back more lethal than ever."

Promoting his new novel If it Bleeds, the bestselling writer admitted that the pandemic has been causing him a great about of stress.

"Imagination is a terrible thing sometimes," said King, adding: "I can imagine germs as big as wagon wheels, on my hands and crawling up my arms."​