With all due respect, I disagree with you here. The only way to accurately compare the prevalence of the disease in different countries is to do so on a "per n-thousand" ratio; otherwise countries with large populations will handily outweigh those with small ones. Similarly, the absolute number of infections in a population is rather meaningless without knowledge of the rate of infection, meaning the number of new ones per unit of time (typically a day) as well as the reporting-area's population. This was one of the infuriating things about the way my state was reporting things early on, and I had to resort to mining proprietary document formats to generate the rate of infection. At least now they're reporting it.
Here's what Massachusetts looked like yesterday. (Massachusetts is just shy of 6.9 million souls as of 2019.) The shaded map of the place on page six is interesting and shows precisely what a common-sense grasp of the situation would dictate: rural (far western and northwestern Mass) and isolated (islands) are far more lightly hit than densely-populated areas. [0]
Absolutely. If one looks at the rate of infections and the number of infections per thousand one gets a better picture of what's going on. However, notions like rates and ratios don't serve the needs of scare-tactics very well so can be sometimes difficult to get to. But, as with everything else pertaining to statistical analysis, it's wise to not let one get swayed by seemingly out of line numbers. Be wary of the numbers, and be warier still of who is presenting them.The infection is spread from human to human. From patient "zero" the spreading depends on the way people behave. If they take all the measures like distancing, face masks and cleaning surfaces, the spreading will be much slower than without those measures. In heavy populated areas the chance of an infection is much higher than in the country side
The USA is the third most populous nation on the planet, so of course the numbers of anything are going to be large by comparison. One cannot compare absolute numbers without "levelling the playing field" using maths.So if we can trust the numbers of other countries, the USA is on top, far ahead of the rest of the world. To counter balance that, the USA is also on top with the number of tests.
[0] For reference, Boston is Suffolk County, Middlesex is largely a suburb of Boston, at least close in, but also is home to Lowell. The same is true of Essex, but Essex is also home to the city of Lynn and Lawrence. Worcester county has the eponymous City of Worcester in it, and Springfield is located in Hampden County, likely accounting for that outcome. Plymouth County has the cities of Brockton and Plymouth. Bristol County is home to Fall River. Cape Cod has no large cities, nor are there any large cities on the islands nor in the northwest of the state. An interesting correlation is that Lowell, Lynn, Fall River, New Bedford, Springfield, and Lawrence are all in the bottom fifteen wealthiest cities in the state.