Computing Forever did a great series on this very issue. He referenced EU documents, Gates Foundation documents and Rockefeller Foundation documents, all written before the pandemic.

He did a good job of running down the initial predictions of death rates and identifying who funded them.

I used to have a playlist of his examination of the subject including some really insightful interviews with world respected scientists;

But he has been banned from YouTube for spreading Covid misinformation. Woo.

To sum up, I think it is a lot easier to take advantage of a crisis if you already have your pieces in place and an effective media machine to control the messaging and public perception. Everyone knew that a pandemic would be coming eventually; they come every few years. The one before this was the H1N1 swine flu.