No matter how you cut it, the US, the best prepared nation in the world according John Hopkins has the worst performance of all the larger nations. If you look at deaths per hundred thousand US and Brazil are essentially tied for number 1.
I don't know WHERE your getting that. Last time I looked we were 8th or 9th.. And the countries BELOW 10th place were not very populated at all.. Don't believe "we're tied for number one"..
Countries whose capability to fight the virus that are far below that of the US are naturally going to have a higher death per capita. The countries with the worst deaths per capita are Peru, Brazil, Spain, and Chili, followed by the US. John Hopkins who ranked the countries most able to respond to a Pandemic ranked the US number one. Peru, Brazil and Chili didn't even make the top 50. Spain was number 37.
When the virus first started appeared outside of China, epidemiologists around the world were expecting the US to be one of the best performing nations in controlling the epidemic as they have been for over half century. However, when they saw what was happening in the US with the president down playing the virus, in fighting between the president and the CDC, test kits failing, and a clear lack of any national plan, healthcare authorities around the world were shocked to say the least. This created a lot of fear. If the US can not control this thing, how can a small country with a fraction of the capability hope to do so.
How does mortality differ across countries? Examining the number of deaths per confirmed case and per 100,000 population. A global comparison.
coronavirus.jhu.edu