COVID-19 has caused a plethora of issues spanning from sports being canceled to vulnerable people losing their lives. However, an issue that has been somewhat overlooked is the credibility of this decade’s Census. With people, especially college students, being displaced all over the country following social distancing and lockdown requirements, Census data is being overlooked and improperly recorded.

The Census is really important for a lot of reasons. Primarily, it allows for the reallocation and redistricting of the House of Representatives to ensure that people are being accounted for fairly (redistricting is based on population count, so various districts may be over or underrepresented in political campaigns and elections). However, with the newfound issues caused by the pandemic, Americans are rightfully shifting their focus towards maintaining their health and securing their jobs. While these are priorities, filling out the Census form takes a minuscule amount of time and has a dramatic impact on the upcoming decade.

A common concern that tends to pop up every Census is determining where college students should state that they live. The correct answer would be the location that the student resides in the majority of the year, which would most likely be their residence at college. The Census particularly states that you should indicate where you live as of April 1, but it clearly did not anticipate the pandemic occurring, nor the displacement of millions of college students. Some universities filed information for all of its students manually — the students did not need to fill out the Census form on their own. Others, however, did not follow suit, causing a little bit more of a discrepancy during these already confusing and complicated times. Had all universities filed for all of its students, this issue would pan out very well, but since many did not, students will have to declare their college residences as the place that they live most of the year to maintain the accuracy of the Census.

Perhaps more relevant to the current health situation of the nation, the Census provides information that is necessary to ration out supplies such as ventilators, hospital beds, ICUs, etc. If the numbers are not estimated correctly, it can cause a mismatch between the need for the resources and the resources available. As a result, people could be turned away due to lack of space and ultimately die.

Continuing the trend of unsafety, various government workers are also at risk if people do not fill out the Census forms. If the Census lacks a significant number of responses, individuals will have to go door-to-door and request that the residents fill out the Census. This puts said individuals and residents at risk because this situation does not align with social distancing practices and can potentially spread the coronavirus to more people.

Similarly, if the Census Bureau still does not have enough respondents, it will have to bridge the gaps using other methods such as using information from tax records and other sources. These sources are likely to not be as accurate but are certainly better than nothing.

Many people are claiming that the Census has been a failure, calling for a 2021 “redo,” but this is unlikely to occur. Public health and political security are dependent on the Census, and without proper records, the accuracy and efficacy of the Census are unreliable.