Before revision: Drastic difference in the COVID-19  infection and fatality counts , observed between Hubei (Wuhan) and other Mainland China provinces raised public controversies. To address if these data can be consistently understood, we develop a model that takes into account all main qualitative features of the infection progression under suppression measures, while remaining simple enough to estimate the key dynamics parameters. We find that social distancing measures had a large effect in the provinces, where moreover higher transmissibility appears to have triggered more effective protection . Hubei is, however, a far outlier with significantly larger transmissibility , but lower protection. Predicted infection attack rate is significantly higher for Hubei, but much lower than necessary for herd immunity.
After revision: Drastic difference in the COVID-19 infection and fatality counts , observed between Hubei (Wuhan) and other Mainland China provinces ), which we explain through interplay of transmissibility and effective protection differences. That is, we obtain a negative feedback (also commonly encountered in systems biology) between transmissibility and effects of social distancing, with Hubei being an outlier with both large transmissibility and lower social distancing effects. While