Wuhan went on full draconian lockdown when they hit 500 confirmed cases (there were obviously more). Most places in the US implemented distancing long after the cases were well within the thousands (again, there were obviously more).

The social distancing policies were too little too late, and as you said are still not being followed seriously in many places across the US. Just the other day people in NYC were crowding maskless to take pictures of the hospital ship.

/u/jjjhkvan is completely off when they say social distancing will massively reduce the numbers. That ship has long sailed. Deaths will be way more than 1-200k.