This archive report was first published on 5 August 2020.
US Census Bureau's Decision Sparks Concerns ¶
The US Census Bureau announced it would end its efforts to count the number of people living in the country on September 30, a month earlier than anticipated. This decision could have severe consequences for the 2020 census, which has been hobbled by the pandemic.
Nearly 63 percent of U.S. households have responded to the census so far, and the bureau has offered few details of how it will meet the goal in a shortened time frame. Historically, the hardest-to-reach households and undercounted populations included minorities, undocumented immigrants, rural residents, and low-income households.
“A big worry is that undercounting will be greater than it has been in past censuses,” said Michael Wines, who covers voting rights for The New York Times. Because census officials are stopping the count early, they will have to resort to statistical methods to make educated guesses about households they can’t reach in time.
“Experts will tell you it’s not a very good educated guess,” Michael added. Census data, which is collected every 10 years, determines the allocation of political representation across the country, as well as federal funding to states and localities. Inaccuracies would skew these figures for the next decade.
The bureau said the recent change was part of an effort to meet the federal deadline, delivering the counts to President Trump by the end of the year. However, some critics have called it an effort by the Trump administration to “sabotage the census to undercount minorities and noncitizens even more than they’re undercounted right now, which is substantially.”
Other News ¶
Rescue workers were searching for survivors today after a pair of explosions shook Beirut yesterday, killing at least 100 people and injuring more than 4,000. The bigger blast sent a mushroom-shaped plume of smoke above Lebanon’s capital, and its shock wave rippled out over miles, shattering windows and ripping roofs from buildings.
Novavax, which received $1.6 billion from the U.S. government to produce a coronavirus vaccine, announced encouraging results in two preliminary studies. In one, volunteers produced a high level of antibodies without dangerous side effects; in the other, the vaccine strongly protected monkeys from infections.
Hurricane Isaias sped from North Carolina to the Northeast yesterday, flooding roadways, toppling trees, and spinning off tornadoes. At least four people died, and more than three million customers lost power, including more than a million in New Jersey.
