On the first full day of his administration, President Joe Biden signed an executive order designed to ensure a data-driven response to COVID-19 and future public health threats. The administration already faces a big choice around COVID-19 data. In July, the Trump administration directed hospitals to stop sending data to the Centers for Disease Control, and instead to send it to the Department of Health and Human Services. And HHS used the data analysis company Palantir to harmonize the data. At first, it was a hot mess. But by the fall, the system was really working, and now is tracking hospitalizations really well. Molly speaks with Alexis Madrigal, who runs the COVID-19 Tracking Project at The Atlantic. He says the Biden administration should try to ignore the messy politics in favor of the good data.