Before revision: Drastic difference in the COVID-19  infection and fatality counts , observed between Hubei (Wuhan) and other Mainland China provinces raised public controversies.
After revision: Drastic difference in the COVID-19 has brought unprecedented social distancing measures, with a challenge on how to include these in a manner that can explain the data, but avoid overfitting in parameter inference. We here develop a simple non-homologous model, where social distancing effects are introduced analogous to course grained models of gene expression control in systems biology. We apply our approach to understand drastic differences in COVID-19 infection and fatality counts , observed between Hubei (Wuhan) and other Mainland China provinces raised public controversies.