The playbook is Technocracy and the actors are Technocrats, that is, scientists and engineers who think it is their role to control all of nature, resources, manufacturing, consumption and management of the 'herd' of humans on earth that all this is spent on in the end. (Note, not all scientists and engineers are Technocrats!)

To a Technocrat, whatever the problem is, science has the answer. Nobody else could possibly have an answer if it isn't science-driven. 

COVID-19 is now generally seen as a creation of highly-skilled geneticists, meaning that its was created by science, even if the details are still unknown. Other scientists have risen to say that science has the answer: mass vaccination of the entire population of the world to build 'herd immunity'. No matter that such a vaccine hasn't been invented yet because Technocrats have a pollyanna-ish hallucination that future innovation will always bail them out.