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Texts, Not Door-Knocks: US Census Outreach Shifts Amid Virus

Associated Press

   ORLANDO, FLA. - In tiny Munfordville, Kentucky, the closure of the
   public library has cut people off from a computer used only for filling
   out census forms online. In Minneapolis, a concert promoting the
   once-a-decade count is now virtual. In Orlando, Florida, advocates
   called off knocking on doors in a neighborhood filled with new
   residents from Puerto Rico.

   Across the U.S., the coronavirus has waylaid efforts to get as many
   people as possible to participate in the count, which determines how
   much federal money goes to communities. The outbreak and subsequent
   orders by states and cities to stay home and avoid other people came
   just as the census ramped up for most Americans two weeks ago.

   On Saturday, the Census Bureau announced it was going to continue to
   suspend its 2020 census field operations for another two weeks, to
   April 15.

   That leaves thousands of advocates, officials and others who spent
   years planning for the U.S. government's largest peacetime mobilization
   scrambling to come up with contingency plans for pulling it off amid a
   pandemic.

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