[twomoretime]

This isn't about defensiveness. You state that, collectively, the US is still in stage one, and then go on to say that this is evidence for a poor response and that it's early to recommend returns to work.

This is invalid, because for example a couple of states could be bring the total number up. Further, again because of the scale of the US, policy appropriate for one state may not be appropriate for others.

Again, the issue here is treating the gigantic US, a mishmash of cultures in 50 states with semiautonomous governments, as a monolithic entity. If you evaluate response policy in this way you're not going to get a good signal.