Data has been such a valuable commodity during the pandemic. Unfortunately, at times data has been in short supply, because US government agencies haven’t always undertaken national data collection efforts. So what happens when individuals citizens try to collect data themselves? We talk to Professor Emily Oster, who developed a national COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, to find out what she’s learned about COVID in schools, the implications of volunteers developing their own public health trackers, and how she thinks the Biden administration will approach pandemic data collection.