The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal on ending the COVID Tracking Project, and what that says about the federal response to the pandemic

Reliable Sources

CNN

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3.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

At the twelve-month mark of the pandemic in the United States, COVID Tracking Project co-founder Alexis Madrigal looks both backward and forward in a wide-ranging conversation with Brian Stelter. Madrigal says the volunteer pop-up collective "stumbled into a real gap in our pandemic preparedness and then have done our best to fill it." But it was necessary because of the federal government’s failures. “Going state by state” and gathering the data “in the way that we did really put us in touch with the realities of this country right now, and not our myths about how great we are,” he says. Madrigal also explains why it is now possible to “sunset” the daily data reporting, and what more still needs to be done. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	One year ago, why was the United States so blind at the start of the pandemic?
0:07.5	Why was the data so lacking from so many states and from the federal government?
0:13.1	And who helped fix that problem?
0:16.4	Those are some of the questions for this week's Reliable Sources podcast.
0:20.1	So let's cue the music.
0:22.0	I'm Brian Stelter and this weekly podcast is our chance to go more in-depth with media
0:26.6	leaders and newsmakers.
0:28.6	And for the past year, Alexis Magical has been a newsmaker whether you know his name or not.
0:34.9	He co-founded the COVID tracking project, which has been an indispensable resource,
0:40.0	collecting data from counties and from states, collecting information about how COVID was
0:45.2	spreading across the United States, about hospitalizations, about deaths.
0:50.4	Magical and his co-founders and hundreds of volunteers filled in the gaps left by the federal
0:56.7	government. They made up for some of the failures of the federal government.
1:01.4	But now, one year later, the project is coming to an end.
1:06.2	This is a hopeful sign. Now that the project leaders believe they can start to trust the
1:12.3	government to gather this data and provide it to the public. In fact, this podcast was inspired by
1:18.6	CNN Health Executive Producer Ben Tinker. He said, you know, the COVID tracking project really
1:23.4	stepped up to fill a void when we weren't getting the info we needed from the government.
1:28.7	And he pointed out now that the tracking project is sunsetting, it's really a moment in time to
1:34.5	recognize and reflect on this pandemic. So let me bring in Alexis Magical. Alexis, thank you so
1:41.2	much for talking with me. Hey, thanks for having me on. So let's go back to the beginning. You were
1:47.6	in your day job of the Atlantic. You weren't looking for some other job or some other gig on the
	...

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