Updated at 1:36 p.m.

BY CRAIG FREILICH
North Country This Week

The Covid-19 outbreak around the world seems to be creeping toward St. Lawrence County just as the 2020 U.S. Census is getting underway, and it could affect the result, especially counting the college students.

The Census, according to the U.S. Constitution, is to be taken every 10 years. It is the best gauge the country has of its population, the distribution of those people, and many other factors about life in the U.S.

The restrictions being placed on people because of the virus, and the restrictions people are putting on themselves, are bound to complicate the population count.

One of the most significant complications of this year's count could be the movement out of St. Lawrence County of thousands of college students who would normally be here but who are moving off campus to stay with family or friends, away from the county's four colleges as the schools try to stem the spread of the sickness on campuses.

John Tenbusch is a member of the St. Lawrence County Planning Office staff assisting the St. Lawrence County Complete Count Committee, an organization of volunteers that endeavors to get the most complete Census data about the county to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"St. Lawrence County Complete Count Committee is gearing up to promote the Census" to everyone in the county, "though we have not met to discuss this," the upset to the count that could come about because of the virus outbreak, Tenbusch said. The committee's next meeting will be Friday, March 20, where Tenbusch said he hoped the issue would be on the agenda. There will be a call-in option available for those who will not be able to attend in person.

"We have to meet: we have to figure out how to communicate with students, even though many of them won’t be returning to campus this spring; it makes our job harder, but we have to figure out something," Tenbusch said.

Tenbusch said college students in St. Lawrence County represent "one of the first target groups we want to talk to. We want to get information to them" so they understand their part in the count. But colleges are sending some students home just as the Census is starting, "and this makes it harder, certainly."

The main point he wants to make to them is that they are likely to be legal residents of St. Lawrence County, certainly for purposes of the Census.

The Census asks people to fill out the form as a resident of the place they are on April 1, but Tenbusch says that "what they're really interested in where they live most of the year."

An accurate count is important for many reasons, but perhaps mostly because things like the amounts of federal aid a place is qualified for and designating congressional districts depend on an area's population. If people spend most of their time in one place, that place expends resources in support of them and should get whatever benefits are due to the area.

"The census is different from your driver's license or your voter registration. If you're a college student in St. Lawrence County, you spend most of your time in St. Lawrence County."

Since the average college student probably spends nine months of the year in the college community, the committee hopes college students will fill out the forms appropriately.