Covid-19 In The U.S.: The Ten Deadliest States

To make an apples-to-apples comparison we use death rate per million population, otherwise the 32,602 killed in New York and the 15,809 dead in New Jersey are literally off the charts.
Also, it's the nine deadliest states plus D.C.

From Worldometer (sortable on blogroll at right):

USA State	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths	New Deaths	Active Cases	Tot Cases/ 1M pop	Deaths/ 1M pop	Total Tests	Tests/ 1M pop	Source	Projections
New Jersey	183,372		15,809		55,928	20,645	1,780	1,817,955	204,674	[view by county] [1]	[projections]
New York	435,753		32,602		151,976	22,400	1,676	5,230,981	268,896	[view by county] [1] [2] [3]	[projections]
Connecticut	48,096		4,406		23,545	13,490	1,236	660,857	185,359	[1] [2]	[projections]
Massachusetts	114,033		8,450		10,193	16,544	1,226	1,139,375	165,306	[1]	[projections]
Rhode Island	17,986		996		15,249	16,978	940	317,544	299,751	[1]	[projections]
District Of Columbia	11,427		580		8,915	16,191	822	155,711	220,632	[1]	[projections]
Louisiana	96,590		3,611		39,691	20,777	777	1,122,962	241,560	[view by county] [1]	[projections]
Michigan	83,059		6,382		21,515	8,317	639	1,749,927	175,223	[1] [2] [3] [4]	[projections]
Illinois	164,878		7,517		18,205	13,011	593	2,308,854	182,204	[1] [2] [3] [4]	[projections]
Maryland	79,545		3,402		70,763	13,157	563	979,158	161,960	[1]	[projectio

....MUCH MORE

Hmmm...adjusting for population doesn't make New York or New Jersey look any better.
In fact just the opposite.

If they were countries, both states' death rates would rank as the worst in the world, far surpassing #1 San Marino's 1,238 deaths per million and #2 Belgium's 846 deaths per million pop.

And using per capita figures brings the third member of the tri-state area, Connecticut into the spotlight.