There were reports when the COVID virus was discovered in Wuhan, that the Wuhan laboratory was trying to create a virus that was deadly to Europeans but was harmless to Asians.
If that is true, the Chinese screwed up rather badly. The Wuhan product appears to be slightly more infective to Asian populations, and less infective to European and African populations.
Perhaps the only human test subjects they could get in the lab were Han Chinese prisoners. Or maybe things just don't work the same with laboratory rats and human beings.