You think it wouldn’t have happened with all the Chinese, Iranians, and Italians coming here?
The NY metro cases have been on an almost perfect exponential curve since that first positive—and it also explains why Fairfield County, CT, Westchester County, NY and northern NJ were hit so hard.
There have been other outbreaks in NYC (Brooklyn synagogue, I believe is one).
Obviously, in a city that big there is a lot going on, but the data seems to point to this one guy as the epicenter of most of the action.