Although vaccine rollout began slowly in the United States,
millions of people are now being vaccinated against COVID-19 per
day. As individuals receive the vaccine, states have been
collecting personal health data in individual immunization
registries. Experts say this data collection is essential to
effectively monitor vaccination progress, report adverse reactions,
compare vaccine efficacy in cross sections of the population, and
keep track of who needs second doses and when.
Although states have traditionally been responsible for
collecting immunization data without federal intervention, some say
the global scale of the pandemic and the need to understand
vaccination progress nationally require greater federal
intervention in tracking immunization data. In December 2020, the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began asking
states to enter into Data Use and Sharing Agreements
that would require states to share vaccination data with the
federal
