Commit to transparent COVID data until the WHO declares the pandemic over, says redouad of Our World in Data
Rich countries are now winding up intense COVID‑19 vaccination campaigns, de-emphasizing public-health interventions and reporting data less frequently, even with three billion people still unvaccinated. I worry that governments and organizations responsible for crucial data-gathering efforts will fail to focus on what’s truly needed to navigate out of the pandemic.
Sometimes, it’s a lack of awareness: government officials might think that a topline figure somewhere in a press release is sufficient. Sometimes, the problem is reluctance: publishing the first file would mean a flood of requests for more data that authorities can’t or won’t publish. Such organizations have taken on this job for the past two years, but the world should not rely on a private university to tally the pandemic’s death toll or announce when 60% of the global population is vaccinated. The WHO should collect and aggregate national figures into an international data set.