Meanwhile, other Western countries have tapped into their modern health systems that can easily track patient data and seamlessly share epidemiologic information across a broad spectrum of health care facilities and public health departments. Because of the lack of accurate and timely domestic data, Biden health officials over the last eight months have increasingly relied on international sources to respond to domestic surges in part because they believe the information is more reliable, the officials said.

The administration’s dependence on international data underscores the extent to which the U.S. public health data infrastructure is still failing to produce real-time data on not only the spread of the virus but also the degree to which the virus evades the vaccine and the degree to which it impacts various American populations. It also raises questions about whether the American public health system, supported by state health departments, will be able to sustain itself under the inevitable deluge of Omicron cases that will pop up across the U.S. in the coming months.

With the emergence of Omicron, public health officials across the country told POLITICO that the current level of investment by the federal government to improve the country’s data systems is not enough to overhaul their existing surveillance systems to a degree that they can handle another massive surge or another pandemic like Covid-19.