Governments would use the trending data of COVID cases to determine whether or not to implement policies to reduce transmission such as enforcing social distancing rules and restricting travel. If transmission and number of cases were decreasing, restrictions could be eased. Likewise, if there was an uptick, restrictions could be put back into place. A key policy decision was whether or not to close schools and have students learn remotely. Governments had to weigh and consider the risk of children both becoming sick with COVID-19 and transmitting it. What further complicated the data set was that a significant subset of people who had COVID, particularly children, would be asymptomatic. With initial resources reserved for individuals who were experiencing symptoms, decisions were made using incomplete information. If the pool of people being tested for COVID was reduced, then the number of positive cases would be deceptively lower than the actual number