Yes they almost certainly did, but it is fascinating to anecdotally note from ongoing press reports that so many of the original cases and now the subsequent spikes have originated from the ME states and/or their airlines. Had it been possible (I admit it was not) to isolate the hub and spoke operations of the 3 main ME carriers, I wonder how much less transmission of the virus there might have been? I suspect that world leaders in any future pandemic will act to block these routes of transmission at lot faster.