Step 1: Even though the world has not had a major respiratory disease epidemic in almost a century, insist one is coming SOON and we have to swab every bat in China to figure what virus will cause it.

Step 2: When you can’t find viruses capable of causing it, start making them more dangerous in a lab.

Step 3: When an epidemic finally breaks out IN THE CITY WHERE THE LAB IS, shout down anyone who mentions the connection. Instead spend two years instituting control measures that prove completely ineffective at stopping it – though very effective at ruining kids’ mental health.

Step 4: Invent “vaccines” that work against the virus in a completely novel way, test them for months, and give them to more than a billion people.

Step 5: Be surprised when the vaccines turn out to be far more effective than the virus itself at causing immune imprinting and original antigenic sin.

Step 6: Wonder why the outbreak has lasted far longer than previous outbreaks, when neither control measures nor vaccines were used.

Step 7: Call anyone who points these unpleasant facts out a conspiracy theorist; when that doesn’t work, censor them.

Step 8: Profit!