That wasn’t the question. The 1st question was why the outbreak didn’t start with the first patient and your position (date of first confirmed case does not determine date of outbreak) was wrong so now you’re moving the goalposts to “other outbreaks just spread faster.”

You are ignoring the actual context of the question, which is “why was the outbreak more severe and widespread in Italy than the US despite a case being confirmed in the US before Italy?”. THAT is the actual question under scrutiny, and that is the question I answered. Nothing in the textbook definitions of ‘outbreak’ you provided links the acceleration and severity of an outbreak to its origination date. There are a hundred other factors at play.

Further, even assuming an outbreak is equivalent to the “first-confirmed” date, you can just replace “first-confirmed” with “outbreak” in the hypothetical I provided and nothing has changed.

The 2nd question was, if the US outbreak is delayed, then why won’t the factors that contributed to the delay (some of which you ID’d) also contribute to a mitigation in the severity of the outbreak. You’ve just ignored that one.

Because I don’t understand what you are asking here. I ID’d factors that INCREASED the severity of the outbreak in Italy. I said nothing about mitigation of the outbreak in the US.

As for what I’m looking for — just a tiny shred of intellectual honesty. Alas, the search continues.

Then perhaps you should try reading critically before offering a response.