How does the US compare in coronavirus rates?

As we all have heard, the US has more cases and deaths than any other country, 4 times more cases than the next nearest country, 2 times more deaths.  Lists like the below seem to be the media's favorite. And New York, Michigan, Louisiana seem actually pretty bad. On the other hand the situation in the US, overall, is clearly not 4x worse than Italy, or even as bad. 

Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,554,568 Cases and 177,402 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer (selected columns)

You can find per-capita tables too, though not as many, and they show the US cases and deaths per person quite a bit lower than the big European countries, except Germany. 

Country	Tot Cases/1M  pop	Deaths/1M  pop
Belgium	3,322	490
Spain	4,249	437
Italy	2,960	391
France	2,342	302
UK	1,769	237
Netherlands	1,906	215
Switzerland	3,205	161
Sweden	1,424	152
Ireland	3,089	124
USA	2,308	123
Luxembourg	5,671	117
Portugal	1,982	70
Denmark	1,275	61
Iran	979	61
Germany	1,739	55

On the other hand the situation is far more serious in New York and some other states than in most of the US. The fact that there are only 430 cases in the whole state of Wyoming doesn't help people in New York. New Yorkers can't go to hospitals in Wyoming. To capture this reality I combined US states with countries of the world from Worldometer.com in a spreadsheet and sorted by cases and deaths per million people.

In this list (ordered by deaths/1 Million)

• New York state is worse than any large country. 
• Other states with serious outbreaks (NJ, LA, Mich) rank with countries like Spain, Italy and France. 
• The US (average) is below most of the big European countries. That reflects the fact that over most of the country, so far, the virus has hardly gotten established. 
• But not below the biggest country of all, China, whose numbers now look very good compared to its huge population. 

	Country,	Tot Cases/	Deaths/
	Region	1M pop	1M pop
us state	New York	12,601	933
	Belgium	3,322	490
us state	New Jersey	9,604	473
	Spain	4,249	437
	Italy	2,960	391
us state	Connecticut	5,015	315
	France	2,342	302
us state	Louisiana	5,131	278
us state	Massachusetts	5,575	250
us state	Michigan	3,156	240
	UK	1,769	237
	Netherlands	1,906	215
	Switzerland	3,205	161
	Sweden	1,424	152
us state	Rhode Island	4,454	142
us state	District Of Columbia	4,080	140
	Ireland	3,089	124
	USA	2,308	123
	Portugal	1,982	70
. . .
	Germany	1,739	55
. . .
	China	57	3

There are many caveats to all the above presentations. All the numbers are said to be unreliable. You can divide other countries into smaller regions--Northern Italy would be at the top in that case. It may just be a matter of time before the states and countries with few cases catch up to the worst ones.  

There has been an increase in overall deaths of unknown cause. China's numbers are suspect. On the other hand many of the people dying are very sick beforehand, many of those would have died within a year. There could be a drop in deaths 6 months from now because the virus pushed many sick people over the edge. 

The whole spreadsheet is shared at My CV-data in worldometer filtered + states.xlsx. You can play with sorting or filtering it online or download it. 

I hope this presentation is helpful in understanding the situation--it is serious but not hopeless. 

Be well, stay well,

tt