After Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Contagion’, here comes a 2018 K-drama that has a plot point referring to the ‘mutant coronavirus’

With people across the world confined to their homes in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, several Netflix users, who have been binge-watching news shows, have come across a coincidence connecting the plot in a South Korean drama with the current pandemic affecting the globe.

My Secret, Terrius, which is a 2018 show available on Netflix in several countries (though not India) predicts the coronavirus outbreak in an episode in its first season. Earlier, Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film Contagion, was also in the news, for having a similar storyline.

The synopsis of the South Korean show reads, “A secret agent who detaches himself from the world after a failed operation tries to unravel the mystery behind a neighbour’s death.”

This may come across as an intriguing murder-mystery, but in the tenth episode of the first season, Netflix users have identified that at 53 mins in, the plot comes to a discussion over the coronavirus, though there is no reference to the current COVD-19 that is causing the pandemic.

A doctor hands over some documents to another character, telling her, “We must do more research, but it looks like a mutant coronavirus.”

The other character responds: “Corona? Then MERS?”

“MERS, SARS, the common flu. They all fall in the same gene family with the same gene information. The coronavirus attacks the respiratory system. During the 2015 MERS epidemic, the mortality rate was over 20 percent,” says the doctor.

“But that’s not serious enough to be used as a weapon. Am I wrong?” asks the other person, to which the doctor states, “Like I said, this is a mutant virus. Someone tweaked it to increase the mortality rate to 90 percent.”

Understandably, after this footage found its way online, social media began trending My Secret, Terrius, and users across the globe began searching for the episode on Netflix. Some (like those in India) were left disappointed, while others added to their conspiracy theories.