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This is the third episode in our three-part series taking listeners inside the failed federal response to COVID-19. Series host Jessica Malaty Rivera and reporters Artis Curiskis and Kara Oehler bring us the conclusion of The COVID Tracking Project story and an interview with the current CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky.\\xa0

We look at the myth that COVID-19 was \\u201cthe great equalizer,\\u201d an idea touted by celebrities and politicians from Madonna to then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Ibram X. Kendi and Boston University\\u2019s Center for Antiracist Research worked with The COVID Tracking Project to compile national numbers on how COVID-19 affected people of color in the U.S. Their effort, The COVID Racial Data Tracker, showed that people of color died from the disease at around twice the rate of White people.

The COVID Tracking Project\\u2019s volunteer data collection team waited months for the CDC to release COVID-19 testing data. But when the CDC finally started publishing the data, it was different from what states were publishing \\u2013 in some instances, it was off by hundreds of thousands of tests. With no clear answers about why, The COVID Tracking Project\\u2019s quest to keep national data flowing every day continued until March 2021.\\xa0

Lastly, Rivera talks with the director of the CDC, Walensky, to try to understand what went wrong in the agency\\u2019s response to the pandemic and ask whether it\\u2019s prepared for the next one.

Check out our whole COVID Tracking Project series here.\\xa0

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