Contexts by Rashawn Ray and Fabio Rojas | December 17, 2020 | Fall 2020 Fabio Rojas and Rashawn Ray, Editors of Contexts Magazine. (Photo by Alisha Kirchoff) On the day of the 2020 presidential election in the United States, the country had more than 1,000,000 COVID-19 diagnoses. As numbers continue to rise, the U.S. is approaching 10 million COVID-19 diagnoses and is well on its way to an unfathomable 250,000 deaths. These numbers are substantially more than any other country and represent nearly 20 percent of the virus’s total fatalities across the globe. Worldwide, nearly 50 million people have contracted COVID-19. However, some countries and territories have managed to contain the virus better than others. Taiwan has few cases, despite its proximity to Wuhan, China. However, the coronavirus outbreak has exposed what the Global Health Security Index found—the world was not prepared for an outbreak. Scores were abysmal for the 195 countries in the report. Though the United States received the highest overall score (83.5), some indicators were concerning. For example, the United States scored only 66.7 on emergency response operations (still ranking second among all countries). Health capacity was scored 60, while healthcare access was scored 25 on a 100-point scale (ranked 175 among countries).