Now see deaths per million is also flawed, because then you would see the country that is most suffering is San Marino.
You have to filter out the mini-states, because on such a small population even a single death (let alone a small cluster) can completely distort the figure. Too much statistical noise.
If you do that, you see that the hardest hit states in the world at this moment are:
1. Italy
2. Spain
3. Iran
..
13. USA
..
19. China
Italy also has a fifth of the population of the US and having anywhere a similar number of infections as the United States and China is really god-damned scary. So it has a huge caseload, both in absolutes and in terms of infections per million.
I'm telling you again, "number of cases" are pretty much bogus numbers.
Italy is a good example. Over 8000 people died there. If the "number of cases" was correct, that would mean the death rate is 10%. Italy has great healthcare. Yes, that healthcare system is under terrible stress, but not so much that 10% mortality can be anywhere near the truth. The reason is simple:
Italy stopped testing anyone who does not need hospitalization.
Multiplying deaths by 100 gets you a good estimate for the minimum number of real cases. At least 800.000 people have been infected over there, not 80.000.
Mind you, the multiplier can be much greater than 100 because of the delay. I am not saying you can reliably calculate infections that way. In countries where they have the disease under control like South Korea, number of cases is roughly about 100 times the death toll. In countries where it is spreading without any checks at all, the multiplier should be about 800 according to this model:
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99caHowever, Italy has been in lockdown for a few weeks and hopefully, the disease mostly stopped spreading there by now.