Take your argument up with the New York Times, their death tracker is showing that ~15k people have died from COVID in the last 7 days: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html Count up the daily counts yourself and check.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You have provided no evidence that 15k, as reported by one of the most reputable new organizations in the world, is wrong or should be considered misinformation.