Or rather, some parts of it are - my own Belgium sadly leads the world in covid deaths per capita (though, in fairness, we counted a lot of uncertain cases back in the spring when most other countries didn't), but New York and New Jersey on their own are still significantly higher. And the way things are going, states like the Dakotas are likely to pass us in the near future, as well, but I doubt the US as a whole will.

In the case of both Belgium and NY/NJ, it has a lot to do with being densely populated, internationally oriented places of course - but there are other regions or countries, like the Netherlands or parts of Germany, which meet that same criterium while having drastically better numbers.

That being said, if you also look at all the indirect consequences, it does look like the US will take more damage over the long run, largely because it has gotten to the point that it's no longer able to come together for a crisis, or even to agree on whether there IS a crisis. Polarization is so bad that people will blame any bad outcome on the other party no matter what, so politicians can afford to be stubborn and decline a compromise on continued economic support.