Saw an article indicating SARS and MERS don't tend to have such an asymptomatic transmission period as SARS-CoV-2 does. I don't know about Ebola.
Recently I saw an article discussing the idea the dynamics of containment in a very large country (e.g.: America) and a small one (e.g.: some European nations are roughly the size of one of our states) may be different for a number of reasons - ease of isolating cases, more limited travel distances within the nation, trust level of the populace toward the government, etc...). Some nations have more authoritarian power over the citizenry (e.g.: China); when getting a pandemic under control, that looks great. But that kind of power is not confined to pandemics.
I agree stronger 'lock down' measures slowed the progress of the virus, our goal was to 'flatten the curve' so health care resources (e.g.: ICU's, ventilators) didn't get overwhelmed. It was not out of the belief we could exclude, contain and eliminate the virus from the American populace.
My point is, I think there's more to the story than lock downs alone, but I agree drastic action earlier paid dividends for some.
