I think Xi screwed the deep state. He was supposed to release an actual plague, not something that was statistically slightly more deadly than the average flu. This is probably why we saw those videos of people dropping dead in the streets in China. He needed to sell it to them.

The Dems fought to keep flights from China open to have it spread here. By the time they realized what it actually was they had to scramble to make a pandemic. Forcing infected into nursing homes to boost the death toll, false positives to make it seem endemic, blatantly mid categorizing deaths, full on fear mongering, etc. They exposed themselves to many in the bid to lock things down. I think this exposure massively contributed to the majority not taking the vax (don’t believe the official numbers).