Virus challenges census

This new decade, things were supposed to be better than they were in 2010, when enumerators suspected large numbers of Adirondack residents went uncounted by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2020, the count is going online, and “Complete Count” committees were formed in rural Adirondack counties, determined to ferret out every last individual in a crucial decennial exercise in which missing even a few hundred people can result in lost millions of dollars in federal assistance.

But the coronavirus changed all that in a heartbeat, rendering much of the preparation useless in a world where meetings, social gatherings and publicity events are now verboten. Community-help agencies had to throw every last resource into the coronavirus fight, leaving little if any energy for census issues. Public libraries that were supposed to be on the front lines of publicity and data collection in rural Adirondack communities closed