You're reading it backwards. Not a tree (that expands), but the opposite. Sick and demented 'joke' / play on the March Madness NCAA men's Bball tourney, with teams (virus scares) being eliminated as the tourney progresses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_Men%27s_Basketball_Tournament
This anon's read is that the whole virus-scare thing was a predetermined, LONG TERM DS plan to progressively instil fear in the sheep via engineered virus du jour until the herd was ripe for the BIG EVENT.
Fauci seems to have made a joke of this, with Coronavirus being the 'winner' of the virus tourney that ultimately ushered in full metal globalism / pop reduction / ownership by vax/branding/passports.
This has been at least decades in the making.