Poor Quality Data for COVID-19. Could we really not do any better???

With CDC’s updated mask policies, we have an even more divided population when it comes to this pandemic. Half of the population is celebrating the ease of restrictions while the other half is super concerned. Each side believes the other side to be a bunch of morons.

One of the biggest reasons for this extreme polarization is the lack of good quality data available to the public. We keep on getting bombarded with COVID deaths and cases like it’s a basketball score card but that data hardly has any useful information such as the strains people tested positive with, reinfection statistics, or vaccination status of COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Due to this uncertainty, people interpret this data on their own based on their own personal biases and choose a side whether Yes Restrictions or No Restrictions.

People who are concerned about vaccines’ potential lack of efficacy for newer strains want to play extra safe by masking and expecting others to mask up even when they’re fully vaccinated whereas people who are confident find it utter stupidity to mask up especially after they’ve been vaccinated.

This uncertainty can easily be overcome if the labs collect and share some additional data fields. The following information from a patient who comes to a lab for a COVID test can remove a lot of uncertainties and make us better equipped to deal with this situation.

1. If a person tests positive, what strain was the person infected with (I have heard this test is possible although a little more expensive for the lab. The government could sponsor this test to gather better statistics for better public health policies. If not for all, then maybe for some random 10% or 20% of the cases)

2. Vaccination record of the person. Also collect this and share if a person is hospitalized or dies.

3. Link the results with a National ID such as the SSN so that we get clean data about reinfections rather than us relying on anecdotes from friends and family.

With such useful information, we can easily figure out how various strains affect the unvaccinated, J&J vaccinated, partially Moderna vaccinated, fully Pfizer vaccinated, etc for various age groups. Reinfection statistics will also help us understand the duration of natural immunity this disease provides along with natural cross immunity across strains. Reinfection seems extremely rare but we still have policies requiring recovered people to mask up and social distance. If we could put a number to reinfections, we can possibly make better decisions.

The vaccines have been proven to be exceptionally effective against serious illnesses with the older strain when we had vaccine trials in November - December. Experts believe them to hold their ground against variants as well.

However, there’s a lack of real data against newer variants making half the population concerned about their efficacy for newer variants. We have heard anecdotes of Pfizer fully vaccinated people dying in India due to the variant currently in circulation over there but we lack good data, only anecdotes.

Until we have good quality data, we’ll make gross errors in risk calculations and keep on making suboptimal policy decisions. We’ll also keep on increasing the distance between the already divided world on what’s the right approach.

I hope we all can come together and appreciate the way vaccines have been produced in record time and at the same time understand the need for good data which we currently lack not a couple of weeks into the pandemic but full 15 months deep into this situation. We might already have preconceived notions about whether to mask up and lockdown or abandon our masks but let’s try to be open as there’s half of the world (including epidemiologists and virologists) whose beliefs are against you whichever side you’re on.

I don’t think any of the readers here has a connection higher up with their country’s top government officials but I still wanted to give it a shot. If you do and you do understand the need for better data, please try to convince your country’s government to instruct the labs to collect and share richer data. Or we’ll keep on blindly enforcing public policies with no evidence which half of the world will cheer for while the other half will condemn.

PS: Please keep the comments section clean. I would appreciate if we don’t make this post the usual Mask v/s No Mask or Lockdowns v/s No Lockdowns social media battleground. I have observed this before. I write something along the lines of how much uncertainty there exists about this pandemic, this virus, and the state of affairs on vaccination and I always find clowns commenting on the lines of either

“Stay the fuck home” or
“Lockdown supporters are pussies”

Readers in support for lockdowns begin delivering their usual moral science lectures which nobody asked for whereas people against them start mocking how big pussies lockdown supporters are.

Let’s not repeat this and keep the comments section civil. Most of us have already picked up our sides but let’s try to be open to new ideas in the light of better data.

Highly Irrelevant but since specifically asked for
TC: 200K

TL;DR
We lack data on vaccination records for COVID outcomes as well as reinfection statistics for various strains. This uncertainty has resulted in a lack of consensus among virologists and epidemiologists about the possible risks fully vaccinated people face, COVID recovered people face, and how this pandemic might proceed in the future since all epidemiological models rely on this information.

This uncertainty has trickled down in the public and has made our world extremely divided on numerous public health policies. My question is “Is it really such an impossible task to gather good data about this disease? We have had those shitty updates about this pandemic each day like it’s a basketball scoreboard since day 1 but even 15 months into the pandemic, we’re relying on the same poor quality data.”