The thing is, are the number of cases increasing, just because we’re finally testing for them?
So does that mean that the cases are really growing, or are we just learning about cases that have already been there for perhaps weeks, and that maybe it’s not really growing all that much?
I’d guess some of both.
The track record of how infectious COVID-19 is in absence of draconian containment measures is fairly well established — and if we need more data from “fairly decent” and most likely “honest reporting” countries, Italy and S. Korea are providing it.