Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to COVID-19 and Future High-Consequence Public Health Threats

The order directs the heads of ten agencies — including the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Labor, HHS, and Education, as well as OMB, OPM, OSTP, the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Science Foundation — to each designate a senior official to lead COVID-19 and pandemic-related data work. It tasks OMB with reviewing the government's existing open-data practices and issuing supplemental guidance on de-identifying COVID-19 data and making it publicly available. OPM must review agencies' ability to hire IT and data personnel quickly and take steps to support that hiring. HHS must review the effectiveness and interoperability of public health data systems and the quality of morbidity and mortality data collection, then issue a written report with recommendations. OSTP must develop a plan for advancing innovation in public health data and analytics.

The order explicitly prohibits compelling the disclosure of privileged, law-enforcement, national-security, or personal information. All implementation is subject to applicable law and the availability of appropriations, and the order creates no enforceable rights or benefits for any party.

Senior officials at ten directed federal agencies, the COVID-19 Response Coordinator, and state, local, tribal, and territorial health authorities that would receive improved federal data sharing. Researchers and the general public would gain access to open, machine-readable COVID-19 datasets under guidance OMB is directed to produce.

State and local health officials would receive better-coordinated federal pandemic data to guide public health decisions and track equity indicators. Improved interoperability and open-data standards could allow faster, more accurate tracking of COVID-19 spread and health disparities across communities.

Ten agencies each name a senior data lead who reports to and coordinates with the COVID-19 Response Coordinator. That Coordinator then convenes agency representatives as needed to align data collection and sharing with subnational governments. In parallel, OMB issues open-data guidance, OPM removes hiring barriers for data roles, HHS conducts two reviews and produces a written report with recommendations, and OSTP drafts an innovation plan. All deadlines are described as "prompt" with no fixed dates; there is no enforcement mechanism beyond the President's directive authority, and implementation depends on available appropriations.