It is not useful to compare total Covid-19 deaths by nation because some countries have much larger populations than others. But a legitimate statistic is the one that compares per capita deaths, or deaths per million population.

In a sad commentary on the state of the nation, the United States now has more Covid deaths per million than Italy. Remember when Americans sneered at the Italians and the Chinese because they were experiencing so many deaths? Now, in other countries, they shake their heads and wonder how the United States could have gotten it so wrong. Italy and China were caught by surprise, and deaths rose quickly. The U.S. has no such excuse. Americans could watch what was happening elsewhere and take appropriate action, but many of them did not. Unfortunately, one of those who refused to take action was the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

Another country that badly bungled the Covid pandemic, leading to thousands of deaths that should have been avoidable, was the United Kingdom. Despite the fact that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself almost died from Covid-19, the Brits still got it wrong. And yet, just this weekend, the death rate in the United States even passed that of Great Britain.

The only nations in the world that still have a worse Covid death rate than the United States, other than the micronations of San Marino (which hasn’t had a death in four months) and Andorra (which has had one death in the last three months), are Belgium, Spain and five nations in South America: Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador.

-David Wallechinsky

Source: Worldometer

Uodate: On November 4, 2020, The United States moved up one place on this unfortunate list, sweeping past Ecuador.