State governments varied widely in mitigation measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic such as school and workplace closings, travel restrictions, stay-at-home orders, and restrictions on public gatherings. More specifically, states varied in how they defined and reported key metrics, such as testing data, cases, hospitalizations and deaths. For example, during the first wave of the pandemic, it was reported that one-third of states were not even reporting hospital admission data, which was key to understanding the surge in the spread of the virus.