COVID-21

Overview
SARS-CoV-21 is a infectious pathogenic virus created by GlobeX. It was developed in Wuhan, China, as a biological weapon that would be contracted, and sold to the Chinese Government and Military in order for usage as a biological threat that could be dropped in bombs, or leaked into water supplies. Due to the actions of the Online Protagonist, as contracted by Night Gang, a large majority of all barrels containing the COVID-21 virus samples were destroyed in the mission, Cleaner's Duty, thus resulting in the biological hazard not reaching it's full potential.

Development
The SARS-CoV-21 (COVID-21) was developed by research and private military company, Globex in March of 2021. Scientists within GlobeX, with the help of local Chinese government-funded researchers, were able to heavily permutate the previously existing virus, COVID-19. As per result of these artificially engineered-mutations, the virus (then known as "COVID-X") would show an increase in a contagion due to the virus being highly volatile when in an airborne state. The COVID-21 virus was also crossed with heavy traces of influenza, which through a process of permutation, causes clusters of red rashes to bacterialize upon human and animal tissue alike.

Usage
As per being designed as a special request from the Chinese Government, the virus was intended to see limited yet powerful usage. From insider information, it can be determined that the virus was tested upon livestock and human-subjects (such as Mongolian prisoners-of-war) were mainly experimented on in surprisingly limited numbers. Expanding on this, it is estimated that there was at least one human-subject fatality at the cause of these experiments, with at least fifteen generic livestock eventually becoming deceased at the hands of experimentation with virus samples. From prior evidence and insider rumors, it can be inferred the Chinese military would plan on using it as a biological weapon-of-mass-destruction against opposing countries, and even provinces and purported riot control usage as well.

Effects
COVID-21 is known for being highly contagious and volatile to breathe in. Airborne particles (protruded from a cough or sneeze) can cause semi-mass infection among especially smaller crowds of people. Expanding upon this, if an infected persons were to interact with a large mass of people, it would only an estimated thirty-four seconds to spread entirely. Symptoms of contracting COVID-21 are drastic compared to the previous COVID-19 symptoms, with them appearing as short as 24-hours after infection. Coughing, sneezing, headache, sore stomach, and nausea are some of the most common symptoms associated with COVID-21, also the forming of red blotches upon the tissue and skin is a notable giveaway to any infected persons. Once inhaled or indigested by a human, the virus rapidly replicates itself to host cells, and can cause cell-destruction if not treated.