There are so many factors behind virus statistics: variants are different, population distribution by age and diseases, genetics, population density, connections and pure randomness have an effect.
it is really hard to make attributions unless you have direct cause-effect connection, like putting infected people back into nursing homes. And it is very easy to make bogus claims to support your view, please keep that in mind.
If you look now at total deaths/mil per country, you see that many countries that had it OK for some time are now similar to other “leaders” – Sweden, France, Poland, Hungary … Among major Western countries, Germany and Canada seems to be only ones doing significantly better than others.
Within the US, early “leaders” are still in the lead – liberal NE (from NJ to MA) states have 5 out of 7 worst states (2500 per mln) – higher than Belgium (1900). Closely following is six poor conservative states (Deep South and Dakotas). Remotest states are at the bottom – HI, AK, VT, MN,OR,UT,WA,NH – these are at German level (300-800 ). Some states similar to NE (VA, MN, MD) and to Deep South (KY,WV) are doing reasonably well.
From taking it all together, it appears that connectivity to the world (esp Europe), high population density, large cities, being poor all contribute. In one of these factors, mobility, US is way worse off than Europe. It is much easier to stop travel thru Chunnel than between NY and NJ ..