No shit sherlock, they had to spook people with SARS and Bird Flu etc for decades before hitting'em with the pandemic O-Plan... got to set the stage so people accept how such a thing could happen... every grid down / cyberpandemic / undersea cable headline is the same.... there will be an internet blackout when they need one.

Something acute like this could simply be tactical in the short term too, justification for moving more submarines in that area or forcing traffic through another intel agencies routers

Base case is it's fake and nothing actually happened, they just want us to know it could happen.