That’s correct. It take an incredible amount of work to undo the bad reaction to the early infections. South Korea had their lesson with MERS, and had a plan perfected when COVID-19 came along. The U.S., under Obama, had no plan and we were sitting ducks. It may be that contact tracing would help in places where outbreaks occur to keep the virus from making new access to new hosts.
Plus a lot of experience with China!