In thinking about the way this virus spreads, especially related to asymptomatic spread a couple of thoughts occurred to me. In Florida, Orange county has relatively fewer cases compared to similar sized counties (population wise) in southeast FL. Orange has about 0.6 cases per 1000 residents while Broward has 1.22 cases per 1000 residents and Palm Beach County has 0.83 cases per 1000. Osceola is about 0.79 but far less populated.
With all of the travel and crowded theme parks (Broward and Palm Beach don't have anything similar to WDW or Universal in that respect) and given the number of front line employees at those parks, I would expect a lot higher case density due to the way the travelers and crowds should have "seeded" the front line employees. Not to mention the locals that were in attendance as well.
Another place I looked at is Texas. Texas has the 13th lowest case density among US States and hasn't had a significant outbreak in the major metropolitan areas (only 10k cases total). The reason I was thinking about Texas is that both Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston George Bush International are (were) very busy and crowded hub airports. Similar to front line employees at Orlando area theme parks, there are many front line employees at those airports but, more importantly many flight attendants are based in the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas. Each flight attendant comes into close contact with 40-50 passengers on each flight. I would have expected similar community "seeding" from these flight attendants.
The initial guidance from the experts was that the primary way the virus spread was through prolonged, close contact with an infected person or through surface contamination and transfer. Now there are all kinds of suggestions of widespread transmission by asymptomatic patients simply talking to people.
The examples of the Orlando, Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas lead me to believe that whether asymptomatic or symptomatic, transmission requires prolonged, close contact or surface contamination. If brief interactions with patients who didn't cough or sneeze during the interaction were highly contagious, I would expect front line theme park employees and airline flight attendants to be infected at a very high rate. The current data of outbreak geographic areas suggests otherwise.
I'm not saying the virus isn't more contagious than things like the flu. However, the picture being presented by some is that it spreads like wildfire if you are briefly close to an infected person, no matter if they are symptomatic or asymptomatic.
The worst outbreak in the country, by far is centered around the New York City metropolitan area. This area is both very densely populated AND has high usage mass transit where people are packed together for a prolonged period and touch a lot of surfaces.
California didn't get nearly as bad as New York despite the congested metropolitan areas. Maybe some of the differences between California and New York would provide some insight into how it spreads. While California locked down a few days earlier, I expect that the virus was seeded there earlier due to the sizable Asian population leading to more travel between California and Asian countries (including China prior to the ban). Hmm. Maybe the China travel ban did have a big impact??? Especially in light of the study that the New York outbreak was seeded by Europe. If not for the ban, would California have had an outbreak like New York? Just some random thoughts popping into my head as I type.
Just my morning thoughts about how the virus spreads that I woke up with spinning in my head...
