We're still at the point where a single confirmed case in a country that didn't have any before is international news and triggers more panic, as if the virus somehow cared about political constructs like country borders. You could easily have a long tail of these that can easily be spun into news about the continuing spread of the virus.
The virus may not care, but it doesn't fly planes, control customs, coordinate response or a bunch of other things. Borders and other political constructs have large effects on contagion.
That wasn't going to happen, and anything else doesn't stop the virus from entering in some way.
And even this could potentially be unsafe as the virus could potentially mutate.
Honestly, anything but herd immunity with vaccine isn't going to cut it with an easily spread virus such as this. (Still not a guarantee, just highly likely to work)