>>if you come across more info on hemispheric differences, pls. mention
There's another local distinction: age. Locally there's a much lower age profile attributed to the higher proportion of infection in recent international arrivals and their contacts. Younger people are more likely to recover, even to be asymptomatic as could be the case in 80% of younger people. Contrast with Italy with more significant community spread affecting older age groups.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1