The COVID-19 outbreak dominated the beginning of 2020. Almost every country and every socio-economic sector is facing this unique situation. Official statistics need to confront new challenges, both internally and externally. Internally, every National Statistics Office (NSO) needs to protect their workers, reorganize their way of working, and ensure the regular statistics production. Externally, NSOs are called to make a statistical description of an unprecedented complex reality. The aim of an NSO is not only to produce official statistics but also to provide a realistic ‘picture’ of our world, even in times of crisis. However, an official statistics system should not limit itself to those standard tasks. NSOs should provide and participate to the production of data and information on COVID-19. For instance, the United Nations Statistics Division is actively recommending guidelines, sharing experiences and collecting data for COVID-19 (United Nations Statistics Division 2020). However, under the threat of COVID-19 many countries are considering official statistics as a non-essential service (Cheung 2020a). Are official statistics a non-essential service? The aim of this letter is: (1) to analyze the role of NSOs during the COVID-19 health crisis, (2) to summarize challenges and opportunities lying ahead, (3) to trigger the discussion about the role of NSOs. For the sake of simplicity, let us distinguish between two different temporal phases of the COVID-19 epidemic. The first phase is predominated by health crisis and lockdown. This phase affects the population. The second phase starts when the health crisis is under control (IAOS 2020). Once the lockdown has been revoked, the country is facing a new socio-economic situation that was completely unpredictable in January 2020. This last phase is full of challenges and opportunities for NSOs. During lockdown, citizens are reading or listening to the figures of new COVID-19 cases and daily deaths. These numbers are unreliable, not harmonized and scarce. They do not provide a secure starting point to understand the situation, nor do they help in making proper decisions. What drives the production of these figures – cases and deaths of COVID-19 – is a medical objective. These figures are necessary to diagnose and care for patients. Nevertheless, we also need figures to better understand the spread of COVID-19. We need figures to help implement the lockdown only when and where lockdowns are necessary. After the health crisis, we will need statistics to help us fully understand the new socio-economic situation and the details of the economic recession. We need reliable figures to plan for the future.

中文翻译：

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致编辑的信

COVID-19疫情在2020年初占主导地位。几乎每个国家和每个社会经济部门都面临着这种独特情况。官方统计需要在内部和外部都面临新的挑战。在内部，每个国家统计局（NSO）都需要保护其工人，重组其工作方式并确保定期进行统计。从外部看，国家统计局被要求对前所未有的复杂现实进行统计描述。NSO的目的不仅是提供官方统计数据，而且是即使在危机时期也能为我们的世界提供现实的“图景”。但是，官方统计系统不应将自己局限于这些标准任务。NSO应提供并参与COVID-19数据和信息的生产。例如，联合国统计司正在积极推荐COVID-19的准则，交流经验并收集数据（联合国统计司2020）。但是，在COVID-19的威胁下，许多国家正在考虑将官方统计数据作为一项非必要服务（Cheung 2020a）。官方统计数据不是必需的服务吗？这封信的目的是：（1）分析NSO在COVID-19健康危机期间的作用，（2）总结未来的挑战和机遇，（3）引发关于NSO的作用的讨论。为了简单起见，让我们区分COVID-19流行病的两个不同的时间阶段。第一阶段主要是健康危机和封锁。此阶段影响人口。当健康危机得到控制时，第二阶段开始（IAOS 2020）。一旦取消锁定，该国将面临一种新的社会经济形势，到2020年1月，这是完全不可预测的。这最后一个阶段充满了NSO的挑战和机遇。在封锁期间，公民正在阅读或聆听新的COVID-19案件和每日死亡人数。这些数字不可靠，不统一且稀缺。他们没有提供了解情况的安全起点，也没有帮助做出正确的决定。推动产生这些数据（COVID-19的病例和死亡）的原因是医学目标。这些数字对于诊断和护理患者是必需的。尽管如此，我们还需要数字以更好地了解COVID-19的传播。我们需要数字来帮助仅在需要锁定的时间和地点来实施锁定。在健康危机之后 我们将需要统计数据来帮助我们充分了解新的社会经济形势和经济衰退的细节。我们需要可靠的数字来规划未来。