I wonder if the original purpose the COVID research was being conducted was to find a virus that attacked everyone except Chinese.
There was an old video where the Chinese were presenting their virus research and that they would, eventually, be able to target specific DNA - e.g. non-Chinese. I distinctly remember watching it.
The problem with such initiatives is that in the process of trying to accomplish this you may inadvertently succeed in the opposite. After all, you must _experiment_ to figure out how to do this....with a high likelihood that along the way of figuring out how things work that you create something specifically dangerous to your own by mistake.
That said, I have a hard time believing 400 million are dead - so believing anything here is suspect.