The Covid-19 pandemic underscores the need for high-quality health data that is readily deployed. Europe’s early epidemiological assessments at the start of the pandemic projected infection and mortality rates by orders of magnitude in error. Once the pandemic was in full swing, official statistics in most European countries underreported coronavirus-related deaths. More recently, the retraction of two separate clinical studies for hydroxychloroquine published in two top medical journals due to unreliable primary data collection and meta-analysis demonstrated the importance of data quality for assessing vitally needed medicines. This session will offer distinct perspectives on how to address data problems such as these in the future so as to steer health policy with clarity and minimize negative repercussions on health outcomes beyond the pandemic.