Those were probably promoted to produce fear in the masses, and create a justification for lockdowns.

The other possibility is that a stronger variant existed in Wuhan, and mutated to a milder but more infectious form (as viruses do) before it spread everywhere. So COVID-19 may have underperformed their expectations as elucidated in Event 201:

The scenario ends at the 18-month point, with 65 million deaths. The pandemic is beginning to slow due to the decreasing number of susceptible people. The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed. From that point on, it is likely to be an endemic childhood disease.

Source: https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html