Does this article claim that Australian citizens of Chinese ethnicity are seeking asylum in China to flee COVID-19? (大多数华裔恐怕只是把中国当成了一处避难所而已) I saw this on a tabloid-like Chinese news outlet:


  不少澳大利亚华裔之所以要离开，很大程度上是因为澳大利亚国内疫情开始呈现爆发迹象，但中国的疫情已经得到了有效控制，所以大多数华裔恐怕只是把中国当成了一处避难所而已，但他们应该清楚的是，拥有澳大利亚国籍的自己早已不是中国公民了。
  易有料, Yiyouliao, undated, viewed 3-rd April 2020


I translate it to:


  Not a small number of Australian ethnic Chinese want to leave, during the "big process" caused by Australia's epidemic situation starting to show signs of breakout, but China's epidemic situation already has effective control, therefore many ethnic Chinese are afraid and only consider China as a place to seek asylum.  But they should be clear: if one has Australian citizenship then they long ago stopped being Chinese nationals.


There's two parts in bold I'm particularly unclear on, although the second part is more important.


很大程度上 seems to mean something like "during [上] the big [很大] process [程度]".  I'm not sure if this refers to Australia's response to COVID-19, or the big process in fleeing Australia to China (given that currently foreigners are not allowed to come to China, so they have to seek asylum).
恐怕只是把中国当成了一处避难所而已 literally translates to "afraid [恐怕] only [只是] China [中国] can be considered [当成] a [一处] asylum [避难] place [所] and that's it [而已]".  I'm not sure if I've understood this accurately.


Question: Does this article claim that Australian citizens of Chinese ethnicity are seeking asylum in China to flee COVID-19?

I'm particularly unsure if the article say it's actually happening, or if ethnic-Chinese Australians are simply considering this as a possibility.
Yes. This article claims that Australian citizens of Chinese ethnicity are seeking asylum in China to flee COVID-19 and yet they failed.


很大程度上 in this sentence means "in a considerable degree". So 很大程度上是因为 can be translated as "this is largely because ... "
只是 …… 而已 means "it's just ... ". 
恐怕 is an adverb in this sentence which indicates very likely speculation that means "perhaps" and "maybe", not a verb meaning "afraid" or "fear".


Here are some more examples of 恐怕 as an adverb.


  天恐怕要下雨了
  
  It looks like it’s going to rain.
  
  他的英语恐怕是说得最好的了。
  
  He probably speaks the best English.