“It’s like we’re flying blind”: The US has a Covid-19 data problem

Six months into America’s battle with Covid-19, we still can’t really see the enemy.

There isn’t good real-time data on where the virus is and who it is infecting. Our diagnostic testing is at an all-time high, but it’s still missing the vast majority of infections.

We don’t have systematic surveillance programs like we do for the flu to fill in the gaps, and we don’t have good metrics that tell us how well the virus is being contained. We’re particularly in the dark about what’s happening in many minority...