Could the cabal virus release have been swapped out for a highly virulent, but much more survivable strain by White Hats? The fatality rate sorta hints that way, plus you would be nearly self-inured to another variant.
SARS was 10% fatality rate. MERS not far behind. This has YET to break 1%, still on the deep right side of the decimal.
R0 3.8 dropped to R0 2.6, still a screamer because of the long incubate.
Fatality rate still needs to normalize but last good # I saw was 0.8%. I expect that spec to jump around A LOT.
Mask lost.