This article examines the need for COVID-19 data for sexual and gender minorities. More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, only five states have collected sexual orientation and gender identity-specific data, leading to a gap in data on how the pandemic is affecting sexual and gender minorities.
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Disease Tracking and Surveillance
Disease surveillance helps us detect disease cases, understand burden of disease and risk factors, provide the basis for timely and informed decision-making, guide control measures, and monitor impacts. Since the onset of COVID-19, surveillance efforts have worked to provide real-time tracking and forecast data, despite challenges with diagnostic capacity, case reporting, insufficient contact tracing, and fragmented data systems. COVID-19 has highlighted the need to invest in modern data systems, expand and skill up the workforce, and ensure data reporting and interpretation retain high ethical and epidemiological standards.