Last summer, health care professionals, advocates, researchers, and social agencies were calling on Alberta to start collecting race-based COVID-19 data. This call became even louder as data from Ontario and across the United States was being shared, and supported what most of us already knew — racism is a health issue.

The data collected showed that Black people in Toronto (only 9% of the city’s population) account for 21% of total COVID-19 cases in the city. It showed that Black people in the U.S. are dying from COVID-19 at 2.5 times the rate as white people. And it showed that South Asian and East Asian populations (only 11% of Alberta’s total population) account for 20% of total COVID-19 cases in Alberta. It’s pretty damn clear that racism is a health issue. But I’m not here to state the obvious.

I’m talking about the data itself, and why the collection and distribution of that data is anything but controversial, in fact, it’s essential.

In an interview with the Calgary Herald, Semhar Abraha said, “We know that the Black community is facing hardships, but we don’t know the nature of these hardships…When we don’t have the data, we can’t prove it.”

The article goes on to say “the lack of available information can further strengthen deniability and ignorance about the issues racialized communities in Canada are facing.”

We need data to be able to closely examine the socio-economic conditions that leave racialized communities more vulnerable. We need it to better understand what systemic racism looks like in our province, and to inform anti-oppressive policy. But we also need it to arm advocates and storytellers, because without data, people just aren’t believed.

The greatest criticism around collecting and disseminating race-based data was that it could lead to further discrimination against marginalized groups. Fair enough; the level of ignorance we saw from Alberta’s Premier when a small amount of race-based data was revealed was telling.

By now, many of us can quote what Jason Kenny said by heart.

“We know that it’s a tradition to have big family gatherings at home and we think this is one of the reasons why we have seen a much higher level spread in the community than other parts of the population.”

Kids, take notes. This is How to Be a Microaggressor 101.

Here’s what we need to get straight; It’s never the data that’s the problem. When data reveals that racialized minorities are disproportionately affected by a health crisis, those committed to their racism will look at how these racialized groups are responsible for making themselves sick. Those committed to anti-racism will use that information to inform how our existing systems have set these groups up to be more vulnerable.

We don’t need less race-based data, we just need leaders that know how to interpret it.

While Alberta has been collecting race-based COVID-19 data for some time now, the plans for how that data will be made available are still unknown. And whether our leadership is capable of interpreting that data accurately or communicating it ethically has yet to be proven. I’d bet no though.

This global pandemic is an opportunity for us to use real-time data to address a really big-picture problem. COVID-19 population data allows us to take a critical look at the systems in place that have allowed for these imbalances, and maybe, just maybe, address them. This is a really unique opportunity that we cannot take for granted.

Withholding information from people won’t make them less racist, and it certainly won’t make our policies more sophisticated.