Okay. So let's press a magic button to make every place in the whole world hit equally hard as NYC, one of the worst-hit cities in the world, with all the death and suffering that entails. Then repeat the process four times. Now we're at 80%, still short of GP's claim.
GP knows that their argument is wrong, and is deliberately lying.
The official testing result is 3.6% positive rate in the SF Bay Area, but we have so many flights from China weekly that it could easily be 50% or more. (fairly unique region)
Actually you're totally wrong for several reasons, not the least of which is your symmetric handling of travel:
- there are direct flights from Wuhan (and Shanghai, #8 in the world) to SFO (Trump stopped the Chinese flights Jan. 31, but Chinese travellers were detouring through Africa and Europe in Feb.)
- but local travel outside Wuhan was restricted (latest Jan. 23, Disneyworld Shanghai was closed Jan. 24)
- the Cambridge and Washington corona models are overly pessimistic and start late - the first Wuhan hospitalization was Dec. 1, and with the direct flights to SFO, corona was in the US in mid-Dec.
What's hard for you and other HNers to wrap your head around is that all the reported information is completely wrong.
The best source I've seen so far is this:
The Failure of Expert Predictions and Models | The Coronavirus and Public Policy
Dr. Victor Davis Hanson also has about 3 interviews that add to that. Search Youtube for "covid-19 victor davis hanson"
(We independently came to the identical analysis of corona for California, literally word-for-word, which is the opposite of the sensationalist news media. The Santa Clara hospital dashboard confirms this, being flat for months.)