From the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials understood that using data to gather insights from otherwise inert information across the entire health ecosystem would improve public health outcomes, but raising the value of that data requires a lot of work, according to several public health officials. […]

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has proposed establishing a new health data agency to improve access to impartial and objective public health data, with the payoff of bolstering infectious disease intelligence and preparedness. […]