Many Alaska residents who have been
waiting for visits from census takers are
unaware they can file without the visits,
Cook Inlet Housing Authority Chief Operating
Officer Gabe Layman said.
“People in remote Alaska were not notified
that they could respond online, because it
was anticipated that a census-taker would be
going to every single household,” said Layman,
who is part of the nonprofit census education
campaign Alaska Counts.
Census packets mailed to homes include
personal codes for the online forms, but the
codes are not necessary for filing, Layman said.
“You can simply go to the site, indicate that
you want to fill out your census form online,
and there’s a little prompt to enter the code,”
he said. “But there is a box that you can
check that just says ‘I don’t have my code’ and
it’s not a problem.”
Phone calls to report census data takes
minutes and there are no penalties for
households that accidentally report more
than once, Layman said.
“There are a lot of folks on the front lines helping
battle the spread of COVID-19. One thing that
we can all do from the comfort of our homes
is to hop online or to pick up a phone and
complete our census,” Layman said.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or
moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough
that clear up in two to three weeks. For some,
especially older adults and people with existing
health problems, it can cause more severe
illness, including pneumonia and death.