Is the sentence “It is hoped that the Coronavirus would disappear soon” correct formal speech?

Question

Today I had my English finals, 12th grade high-school. I live in a third-world country, and so the quality of the questions/answers is not always guaranteed. One of the questions was:
Which of the following is formal speech?
A. [something which was obviously wrong]
B. [Another obviously wrong option]
C. It is said he has a map.
D. It is hoped that the Coronavirus would disappear soon.
I chose "C". However, just now our Ministry of Education has published the correct answer key on their social media account, and there, option "D" is said to be the correct one. Now, I think this option is wrong because "would" shouldn't be used here; it should be "will", which would make option "D" look exactly like this: "It is hoped that the corona virus will disappear soon"
Please help me. If option D is incorrect, then what I need to do is to get some evidence and backing that it is the case after all, and I plan on contacting both the Ministry as well as the Minister himself (these technical mistakes happen a lot, and in many cases they will just give everyone the 2 marks that the correct option is supposed to provide). What makes this all the more urgent is the fact that I have only a small window of time to make my complaints heard, and although I hate to be in this state, I literally beg the mods not to remove this question if it is inappropriate, because possibly the fate of at least 100,000 students in my nation is at stake.

user393146 · Answer

The verb wish can take modally remote finite clauses as complements. The verb hope in contrast cannot. This verb must take what are sometimes referred to as indicative finite clauses.

I wish that it will rain today. (Wrong, wish + indicative clause)
I wish that it would rain today.
I hope that it will rain today.
I hope that it would rain today. (Wrong, hope + modally remote clause)

The verb would can be used in indictive clauses when it expresses volition or amenability on the part of the subject. But here the subject must be an animate being:

I hope Ben would agree.

The verb would can also just be used to indicate futurity in the past without any modally remote meaning:

I hoped it would would rain.

However, neither of these applies to the example given in the question:

D. *It is hoped that the corona virus would disappear soon. (Wrong)

Here the use of would makes this a modally remote clause. As hope cannot take modally remote clauses, this example is ungrammatical.
Much of the relvant information can be found in CGEL (pp. 1002-1004).

Is the sentence “It is hoped that the Coronavirus would disappear soon” correct formal speech?

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