We missed the 'golden window' early on in the epidemic when (for instance like SARS-CoV) it could have been contained. But now we have a real problem. The big difference between SARS-CoV and COVID-19 is that the former first gives you symptoms and then makes you contagious and with COVID-19 it is the other way around. That simple fact alone possible made it impossible to contain this. But we never really tried (except for a very few countries).
We missed the 'golden window' early on in the epidemic when (for instance like SARS-CoV) it could have been contained. But now we have a real problem. The big difference between SARS-CoV and COVID-19 is that the former first gives you symptoms and then makes you contagious and with COVID-19 it is the other way around. That simple fact alone possible made it impossible to contain this. But we never really tried (except for a very few countries).