It hit all the western countries at the same time. No one was prepared. Only South Korea is a success. Everyone else is getting fucked.
Absolute horseshit.
I'm in Vietnam and have been here for a month and they have less than 300 cases. They share a land border with China and are by no means a wealthy country and they were able to prepare for it. Even now, with a nationwide lockdown, people are prepared to be in lockdown for longer to stop this thing.
The most recent burst of cases came from British tourists so they literally stopped all incoming flights and shut their borders as much as possible. Every foreigner still in the country who came after March 1st had to verify all their flights and enter into mandatory quarantine on an army base if they were infected or at risk. Same for any Vietnamese national who came in during that time period. After that, they locked down the cities, then the whole country.
If Vietnam can do it, there is no reason that my home country of the US or any other Western nation shouldn't have been able to as well. They just simply weren't willing to take the necessary steps early because they cared more about the economy than the lives of people.