Since China permitted the exportation of SARS from Beijing, the numbers of victims all along the rail lines over the next few weeks probably will be exponential.
As of Friday, news reports said almost 1 million people had left Beijing. (Beijing has/had 12 million.)
What will the other 11 million people think about this, and what will they do? (I haven't seen any updates.)
Whether China is capable of tracking the number of new rural cases is in serious doubt, even if they wanted to report them accurately.
Travel by foreigners to rural areas was banned over a week ago, and foreigners already there are being encouraged unofficially to leave. This will reduce the flow of news from these regions to the outside world.
I seriously doubt the Chicom government knows the real situation even now. But whatever it is, they will not want the outside world to know if the news gets worse.
It's entirely possible that Hong Kong and Beijing will get their outbreaks pretty much under control like Toronto has, and the world will breathe a sigh of relief, and move onto the next thing the media puts into the spotlight.
But, we won't know whether that's justified.