I have wondered about China’s reaction to it. Based on how they handled it (or showed how they handled it) I thought it would have been much worse here. Although it was bad those first several weeks in some parts of the country (NYC).
Although the Chinese would have had to hack the traffic data (I forget the website) that showed the commute times in various Chinese cities. The traffic volumes were nothing.
They would have had to fake the air-quality sensors and photos from China, India, Japan, etc.
I’m guessing that China’s reaction (over-reaction?) was based on they knew what they had released, and that it had a terrible potential.
Of course, if you also think that China only has 85,000 people dead from Covid, with more than 4x the population of the USA, well....
I think China’s reaction was based on being ground zero for a few of these already and having them turn into serious and embarrassing disasters for them. Look at the way previous bugs tore through them and did almost nothing in the West. That’s not good for the national pride. So they reacted hard trying to keep it small there.