Shutterstock.com

A Federal Data Failure Is Making It Hard to Talk About COVID

Without a standard, trusted language of COVID data collection, it’s been hard to measure the disease, track its trend, and build effective policy.

“Can we talk?” comedian Joan Rivers always asked. When it comes to COVID-19, the answer seems to be no.

To talk about COVID, let alone act effectively to stop it, we need a common language that we all understand and on which scientists can base their work. But from the very beginning, the issue—and the language we’ve tried to use to talk about it—has been hyper-politicized, and that’s been a major impediment in the nation’s efforts to attack the virus.

When it comes to the language of COVID, the United States stands in sharp contrast with the rest of the world. The Germans have their Robert Koch Institute—the country’s version of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—and its reports are a model of clarity and precision and political neutrality in nailing down the problem. 

In the United Kingdom, there’s an up-to-the-minute dashboard of cases, hospitalizations, and the death rate, with the data broken down by region. Australia, likewise, has an easy-to-read “BeCovidSafe” dashboard that tracks the virus. In Canada, there’s a handy outbreak update. Japan has its COVID tracker powered by data from the prefectural governments, and Korea’s website builds on data from the country’s Central Disease Control Headquarters. In all these cases, the building blocks of data come from the government, and they drive the public debate. 

In the United States, by contrast, the COVID language problem has been muddled from the beginning. The New York Times is reporting daily trends and hot spots based on data from county governments. For the Washington Post, data comes from the paper’s reporters and from the notable Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard, whose numbers in turn are compiled from a vast array of local and state public health departments. Then, of course, there’s the University of Washington COVID model, which builds on the Johns Hopkins Github, and the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, which has its own methodology

This is one of the most important things making COVID-19 different in the United States: driving the American debate are the analyses being put together by non-governmental sources. 

The CDC has its own dashboard, but it’s been used mostly by public health professionals, compared with the data on which the media have relied. And its data have been the subject of rising political controversy as the Trump administration has tried to bypass the agency’s data collection role and, at least for a while, took down the CDC’s public information on the virus. That further muddled the data challenge in tracking COVID-19 and increased the politicization of the data process.

Moreover, there have been surprising inconsistencies in the data strategy along the way. Experts compiling the media analyses are keeping track of what they call numerous “reporting anomalies” that make it even harder to speak in a common language about COVID-19. In late June, New Jersey shifted from reporting confirmed to probable deaths. New York City, on June 30, released a large number of reports of deaths from previous periods, but didn’t identify when they occurred, and that produced a big spike that made trends hard to measure. Kansas started reporting its count only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while in Florida a major public squabble over the state’s dashboard led its designer to claim she was fired.

The government’s central role in collecting the data and building the data superstructure in other countries certainly hasn’t boiled away the politics. The question of wearing masks has roiled Britain, and the Germans are debating how and whether to reopen schools. But, for the most part, in most other countries, government professionals have been responsible for collecting the basic data on which the political decisions have been made. Neutral competence has been the foundation of the COVID debate almost everywhere—except in the United States. And without a standard, trusted language of COVID data collection, it’s been hard to measure the disease, track its trend, and build effective policy. 

There’s surely great value in creating different models to assess the virus and predict its future. In a disease with so much uncertainty, the more different perspectives we can get on it the better. But, at the core, the United States has been profoundly crippled by the challenge of putting together the most basic information about what’s happening, in a way that ensures everyone is speaking the same language.

The United States built its public service—and the world’s premier public health system—on the principle of neutral competence. Since the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, the core principle of American bureaucracy has been that it sought to provide politically unbiased information to policymakers and to deliver politically unbiased services to citizens. The fierce political battles that have raged since the beginning of the COVID outbreak have undermined this principle, crippled our response, and put our people at greater risk. 

We’ve had lots of debates about how the American response compares with other nations. But nothing is more fundamental than the effort, since the beginning, to push aside any effort to develop a common language with which to assess and guide policy. Now, as we debate the best steps to tackle the flareup in the virus around the country, we find our efforts undermined. 

So “can we talk?” The answer, sadly, is no, because we don’t have a common language for the conversation. 

Donald F. Kettl is the Sid Richardson Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and he is the author of The Divided States of America (Princeton University Press, 2020).

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.