I suggest you read up on Admiral Thrawn. Study a species' artwork and you can understand their psychology - specifically, vampires, zombies, and doomsday scenarios.
Psychological warfare is far more powerful than any other form because it is your perception that creates the reality you react to. Let's start by asking some questions:
How is a test for viral infection conducted?
< What is Nucleotide testing and Reverse Transcriptase?
How accurate is this method?
Who is in a position to verify the accuracy of the test(s)?
Who produces these tests? And - are there any other parties able to use alternate means to verify the claims?
Let's play a conspiracy theory. Viral test kits are a lie - they are only as accurate as a coin flip, maybe even less so and can't pass double-blind experiments. In truth, no one knows what is actually making people sick, but because testing begins at the claim of a new viral discovery and is continued in response to symptoms among contacts, the PERCEPTION of a new virus exists because the test kits will undoubtably return false positives… particularly if they've been contaminated ahead of time to seed the paranoia.
Is the flu, this year, that much worse than any other flu season?
The CDC was tracking H1N1 pdm09 and B-Victoria … what happened to those numbers?
… can the sudden decline in reported cases be explained by cases of the Chinese Virus?
Does China want to be seen as competent - or, more accurately - does China particularly care if we think they are competent?
How probable is it that we are getting just your average videos from behind the Chinese Firewall?
China announced that the recovered could still be infected, again, the evening the Cares act was passed?
Was China sold our Strategic Action Plans (contingency plans)?
Whether or not there really is a new, deadly virus running around is rather irrelevant (and, in general, biological warfare is a bad idea speicifally because of the odds of it backfiring) - what matters is whether or not we believe there is such a contagion, and we will act accordingly.
Remember, 18 USC 2381. Why is it that so many news outlets are deliberately misrepresenting this virus and the conditions of hospitals?
All companies have stock owners.
China Incorporated.
The dirty secret of communist countries is that nearly all of them sold their government as a stock. Buy stock in a country, get to profit off of all the goodies it sells to the capitalist markets. Hence completing the "why do 'free market' capitalists always glorify nations that are anything but?" - and the answer is that communist governments are effectively one giant mega-corp.
Study the rise of Kim Jong Il to power in North Korea as they began to default on the debts Kim Il Sun took out for his version of the great leap forward.