Data collection and reporting has been an issue this entire time.
The simple truth is, our IT systems-- and more importantly our routine processes-- just aren't geared to report out daily statistics for this kind of thing. This is the first time in global history, any outbreak has been tracked this closely. The systems and processes are actually designed to accumulate and compile this kind of data months, or even years, after the fact. Because we've never before felt the need to track daily cases on something like this.
It's not a problem that could be effectively and efficiently solved in a year, and perhaps not even in a decade. But honestly, the stop-gap measures put in place over the past 18 months, have been pretty darn impressive. I'm certain they're incredibly inefficient and obviously they are highly error-prone, but the fact that we can get any data AT ALL in near-real-time, is pretty surprising to me.