Every year Australia knows they will have fires, but they don't know where. They enforce restrictions on people, like no open fires, don't drop ciggie butts, and fuel reduction. That's the washing hands part. But they don't go around bombing the bush with water, as that wouldn't achieve much. But, when an outbreak starts, they attack it. Cut it off and bomb it with water. Hopefully this will make it go out, or at least give them time to evacuate people.
The difference is that in analogy we're not the people, if anything we're the bush! Serious attempts to stop the virus are only going to happen after it's burned through enough people to start to look dangerous to wider society as a whole, and more dangerous to the economy than doing nothing.
In Australia, they do what they can to stop fires before any people are killed - they don't let them keep burning while the numbers of deaths are low, and only intervene when they get a bit higher.