Why U.S. COVID Policy Should Start With U.S. Data

Meghan Fitzgerald, RN, MPH, DrPH, is an adjunct associate professor with the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and a private equity investor. She has decades of experience working in the healthcare field, ranging from frontline patient care to advising prominent healthcare firms. Here, she shares her take on why the United States so urgently needs to update its public health infrastructure and make its own policy decisions.

National public health policy depends on a rollup of real-time, reliable state-level data which we don’t have. Instead—and perhaps tellingly—we’re borrowing data from countries with centralized health systems.

In Israel, 98% of the population has been using the same linked electronic medical record system for decades.

The Biden administration paints the use of Israeli data as a way of forecasting what’s to come in America. General COVID-19 trends in the United States have largely mirrored those in Israel and the U.K., but on a one-month lag time. So when data published in an August preprint showed the effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech booster shots in older adults in Israel—even in the face of the Delta variant—the U.S. was quick to establish abooster planfor as soon as September 20.

But general trends shouldn’t beget general guidance. We need a healthy scientific debate in the U.S. with our experts and national data, allowing for a transparent policy-making process about vaccines. That process can help determine certain priority groups that may need a booster in the U.S.

White House: Most Americans Will Need Booster Shot 8 Months After Vaccination

Many health organizations and scientists, however, think the evidence for booster shots at this time is lacking:

Are COVID-19 Booster Shots Variant-Specific?

How Can the U.S. Boost Its Data Capabilities?

As part of its response efforts, the Biden administration has committed $7.4 billion from the American Rescue Plan to hire public health workers. But the investment is really needed to modernize our technological systems too.

This New Data Tracking Tool Takes a Closer Look at COVID-19 Disparities

Despite $500 million of funding last year tomodernize public health data, it wasn’t until last month that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced plans to develop the country’s first forecasting and outbreak analytics center to analyze data in real time.

To transform the nation’s public health surveillance capacity, experts from theCouncil of State and Territorial Epidemiologists(CSTE) have called for a “public health data superhighway” that facilitates automatic data exchange. They say this is best done through public and private partnership.

How to Sort Through Mixed COVID Messaging, According to a Public Health Expert

Rapid Improvement Is Possible

From internet speed and accessibility to artificial intelligence research, the U.S. is a global powerhouse when it comes to data. But that power hasn’t been applied to public health.

The U.S. helped develop lifesaving vaccines in less than a year, so upgrading American health data infrastructure to meet the needs of this century is possible.

What Does It Take to Make a COVID-19 Vaccine?

In the meantime, the U.S. needs to triage and organize around what data matter most. Specifically, we must transparently report on breakthrough infections, boosters, and pediatric data.

The U.S. was once a leader in collecting systematic federal data on population health, and it has the bipartisan support to do it again.While we should continue use COVID-19 data from outside the U.S. as point of reference, that data should be used to inform or add to our own body of science. It’s what good researchers do.

The information in this article is current as of the date listed, which means newer information may be available when you read this. For the most recent updates on COVID-19, visit ourcoronavirus news page.

5 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Jia P, Yang S.Early warning of epidemics: towards a national intelligent syndromic surveillance system (Nisss) in China.BMJ Glob Health. 2020;5(10):e002925. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002925Bar-On YM, Goldberg Y, Mandel M, et al.BNT162b2 vaccine booster dose protection: a nationwide study from Israel.Epidemiology; 2021. doi:10.1101/2021.08.27.21262679Krause PR, Fleming TR, Peto R, et al.Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses.The Lancet. 2021;398(10308):1377-1380. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02046-8Himmelstein DU, Woolhandler S.Public health’s falling share of us health spending.American Journal of Public Health. 2016;106(1):56-57. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302908Schneider EC.Failing the test — the tragic data gap undermining the U.S. Pandemic response.N Engl J Med. 2020;383(4):299-302. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2014836

5 Sources

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Jia P, Yang S.Early warning of epidemics: towards a national intelligent syndromic surveillance system (Nisss) in China.BMJ Glob Health. 2020;5(10):e002925. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002925Bar-On YM, Goldberg Y, Mandel M, et al.BNT162b2 vaccine booster dose protection: a nationwide study from Israel.Epidemiology; 2021. doi:10.1101/2021.08.27.21262679Krause PR, Fleming TR, Peto R, et al.Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses.The Lancet. 2021;398(10308):1377-1380. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02046-8Himmelstein DU, Woolhandler S.Public health’s falling share of us health spending.American Journal of Public Health. 2016;106(1):56-57. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302908Schneider EC.Failing the test — the tragic data gap undermining the U.S. Pandemic response.N Engl J Med. 2020;383(4):299-302. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2014836

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Jia P, Yang S.Early warning of epidemics: towards a national intelligent syndromic surveillance system (Nisss) in China.BMJ Glob Health. 2020;5(10):e002925. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002925Bar-On YM, Goldberg Y, Mandel M, et al.BNT162b2 vaccine booster dose protection: a nationwide study from Israel.Epidemiology; 2021. doi:10.1101/2021.08.27.21262679Krause PR, Fleming TR, Peto R, et al.Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses.The Lancet. 2021;398(10308):1377-1380. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02046-8Himmelstein DU, Woolhandler S.Public health’s falling share of us health spending.American Journal of Public Health. 2016;106(1):56-57. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302908Schneider EC.Failing the test — the tragic data gap undermining the U.S. Pandemic response.N Engl J Med. 2020;383(4):299-302. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2014836

Jia P, Yang S.Early warning of epidemics: towards a national intelligent syndromic surveillance system (Nisss) in China.BMJ Glob Health. 2020;5(10):e002925. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002925

Bar-On YM, Goldberg Y, Mandel M, et al.BNT162b2 vaccine booster dose protection: a nationwide study from Israel.Epidemiology; 2021. doi:10.1101/2021.08.27.21262679

Krause PR, Fleming TR, Peto R, et al.Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses.The Lancet. 2021;398(10308):1377-1380. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02046-8

Himmelstein DU, Woolhandler S.Public health’s falling share of us health spending.American Journal of Public Health. 2016;106(1):56-57. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302908

Schneider EC.Failing the test — the tragic data gap undermining the U.S. Pandemic response.N Engl J Med. 2020;383(4):299-302. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2014836

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