We. Shut. Down. Too. Early. In. Most. Places. For the love of God. Texas didn't have an outbreak when they shutdown! Nor did Oregon, or California. That is the difference. All of Europe shut down _after the virus had already grown exponentially_ in most places. We shut down Oregon when there were fewer than 100 cases. After three months of being shut down in Oregon the curve had nowhere to go but up! What in the hell…
By and large, places that weren't hit as hard as NY and western Europe assumed that they had some inherent privilege or immunity, and many of them are being proved wrong. It's a basic human behavioral characteristic. Even if you don't understand why you are better off than someone else, the default assumption is that you are intrinsically better. It might be true! But it's dangerous to assume it when you don't know the reason why.
So I think it's more of a tragic flaw of human nature than a particularly unlucky failure of timing.
The other issue with human nature is that people need feedback, so when you have 2-4 weeks of delay in the loop, things get out of control. You have weeks of believing falsehoods before reality starts to kick in.