[arcticfox]

As a counterpoint, I saw a lot of people supporting the idea (with similar anecdotes) that there was a huge outbreak in California in December before we were even testing for COVID at all. Which was empirically demonstrated to be untrue by the later Seattle Flu Study testing of the viral genome.

That said, it's a whole lot more likely that you're right than the December-California-epidemic folks, just saying that that type of anecdotal evidence is fairly easy to come by in the winter.