In Italy, friendly kisses and hugs are part of the culture. This also adds to the explosive increase, also many elderly there. They say it's because of extensive use of olive oil in their cooking.
maybe. but what is the official statement of how Italy became so massive infected with the COVID-19? are there any explanations so far?
Idk if there is an official statement, but i'd say tourism. Also quite some italians from the lombardy region working in ski resorts in the southern west of austria, hosting many international guests.
ok, so maybe Chinese tourists. could be. but to be honest for me the whole situation of spreading that virus around the world is a bit mysterious. really.
Not really, imo. That's what you get with millions of chinese tourists on vacation around their new year and two weeks of incubation time. And the resulting R0 of 3-3,5 has good impact on the growth of case numbers, too.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and this takes us to 3-4 weeks to get the first dead patient to be diagnosed in hospital. Imagine the spread within this time. More and more cases pop up, everywhere. In the southern hemisphere the temperature, level of UV-C radiation and air humidity makes it much more difficult to spread. Most cases and fatalities are foreigners there. But since they are going into fall and winter soon, the situation may get significantly worse, southward of the equator, in the next few months.
Travel bans should be planned ahead, but you know, "economy first"

By then case numbers in the northern hemisphere should get much better.