> Still, the vast majority of cases in California have been in the metropolitan areas that have also had the strongest restrictions.

So are the vast majority of people, and greater population density makes it harder to control the spread of communicable disease. So you’d expect, all other things being equal, not only thr vast majority of cases but the highest per capita cases to be in the metro areas.

But, actually, the highest per capita infections (both total and current) were mostly in rural, not metropolitan, counties.