{"id":1319315,"date":"2020-04-06T17:23:57","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T23:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=995334"},"modified":"2020-04-06T17:23:57","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T23:23:57","slug":"novel-coronavirus-impacts-2020-census","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/novel-coronavirus-impacts-2020-census\/","title":{"rendered":"Novel coronavirus impacts 2020 census"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"812\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Census2020_Flyer-812x1024.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Census2020_Flyer-812x1024.jpg 812w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Census2020_Flyer-238x300.jpg 238w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Census2020_Flyer-768x968.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Census2020_Flyer-1218x1536.jpg 1218w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Census2020_Flyer.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 812px) 100vw, 812px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The coronavirus outbreak has certainly affected the 2020 census, at least when it comes to outreach.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly a week after the \u201ccensus day\u201d April 1, barely half of the state has completed the census questionnaire. In Garfield County, 44.7 percent of addresses have responded, the vast majority using the online census form.<\/p>\n<p>But many ski resort towns and areas with early outbreaks of COVID-19 appear far behind in filling out census forms.<\/p>\n<p>Snowmass Village had an 8 percent response rate April 5, and Aspen had a 22 percent response.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/pi-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The western part of the Roaring Fork Valley and Garfield County had far better responses. Glenwood Springs and Rifle both had around 43 percent response, New Castle and Carbondale were above 50 percent, and Silt was at 45 percent by April 5.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the reason for the discrepancy could be due to the nature of resort towns, and how the response rates are calculated.<\/p>\n<p>The census response rates are based on the number of residential units, but if the unit isn\u2019t the primary residence for anyone, the response for that dwelling would be zero. Areas with more second-homes will therefore have a lower response rate.<\/p>\n<p>For example, the 2010 census found that 41 percent of Aspens\u2019 5,929 units were not primary residences.<\/p>\n<p>There is still a possibility that the pandemic is affecting self-responses, according to Rachel Brenneman of the Aspen to Parachute Complete Count Committee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do think that the pandemic, the fear and the anxiety, and the transition to working from home, figuring out childcare, and what this new normal looks like, is definitely turning people\u2019s focus from their civic duties,\u201d Brenneman said.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the local census committee\u2019s outreach efforts had to be scuttled due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>The COVID-19 outbreak \u201chappened right as we were starting to kick off tons of community events and outreach efforts in person,\u201d Brenneman said.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, the census was supposed to send out staff members with packets reminding people to take the census, and that has been pushed back considerably.<\/p>\n<p>The in-person events were a large part of outreach to Spanish-speaking populations, and everything has now had to go online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is the one area that we feel hit the hardest in terms of outreach, because many of our tactics were one-on-one, face to face small group community meetings,\u201d Brenneman said.<\/p>\n<p>Outreach to elder care facilities also had to shift to digital. The complete count committee had planned on doing a nursing home tour with a singer-songwriter, but with access restricted due to the virus, that tour will be an online video.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cIt\u2019s been an interesting process of reworking and pivoting to all-digital,\u201d Brenneman said.<\/p>\n<p>Another unique outreach: with schools closed, Roaring Fork School District and Garfield Re-16 are organizing meal delivery to students who qualify for free or reduced lunches.<\/p>\n<p>The census committee will send out coloring books and crayons, with information about the census, with those meals next week.<\/p>\n<p>There is a chance that during the summer, the committee could do one last outreach with in-person events.<\/p>\n<p>The deadline for self-response collection is August 14, two weeks later than the original deadline.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are hoping to do what we\u2019ve been calling internally an, \u2018it\u2019s not too late\u2019 campaign starting in July,\u201d Brenneman said.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of the timing will depend on guidance from state, federal and local health officials.<\/p>\n<p>Nationwide, the Census Bureau has delayed following up with nonresponsive households by about two weeks. The door-knocking part of the census was supposed to begin May 13, but that\u2019s been pushed to May 28.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first time the census could be filled out online, so organizers are still hopeful to get a better self-response rate than a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>In Garfield County, the self-response for the 2010 census was 60 percent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur goal was to exceed the response rates from last census, but at this point, with everything else that\u2019s happening in the world, we are not trying to hold ourselves to a certain percentage at this point in the game,\u201d Brenneman said.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"mailto:tphippen@postindependent.com\">tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/novel-coronavirus-impacts-2020-census\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The coronavirus outbreak has certainly affected the 2020 census, at least when it comes to outreach. Nearly a week after the \u201ccensus day\u201d April 1, barely half of the state has completed the census questionnaire. In Garfield County, 44.7 percent of addresses have responded, the vast majority using the online census form. But many ski [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1319315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-30 05:20:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}