You can't control the virus but you can control how you report on it. For a time they were trying to manipulate the statistics to make things seem better, both by changing the PCR cycles for infections for vaccinated individuals and by changing fatality reporting for the vaccinated.

Had they continued manipulating the figures in such a way as to make it seem like the pandemic was waning, they could have gotten people to calm down about it. Because ultimately the present hysteria is much more about our reaction to the virus than the virus itself.