The U.S. Census Bureau will continue to enumerate people through Oct. 31, the original deadline date in response to the pandemic.

On October 2, 2020, a message announcing the most recent extension was sent to census takers working on the 2020 Census.

“As a result of court orders, the October 5, 2020 target date is not operative, and data collection operations will continue through October 31, 2020,” the message said. “Employees should continue to work diligently and enumerate as many people as possible.”

U.S. Census Bureau officials say Census takers will continue to go door to door to enumerate households that have not responded to the 2020 Census.

As of Friday, 99 percent of housing units have been accounted for, with 32.5 percent counted by census takers and other field data collection operations, and 66.6 percent of housing units responding online, by phone, or by mail, according to the Census Bureau.

As of Tuesday, Kern’s self-response rate was 64 percent, which is lower than the response rate in 2010. This does not include those enumerated by Census takers. Kern ranks 33 out of 58 in all of Califonria’s counties’ self-response rate.

Many of Kern’s rural communities had low self-response rates as of Tuesday. Arvin’s self-response rate is the lowest in all of Kern County, with a self-response rate of 57.1 percent. Barstrow and Wasco’s self-response rates were at 60 percent; McFarland at 61 percent; and Delano at 63.4 percent.

It’s not too late to respond to the 2020 Census. Households can still respond now by responding online at 2020census.gov or 2020census.gov/es (Spanish website) by phone at 844-330-2020 or the Spanish line at 844-468-2020, or by completing and mailing back the paper questionnaire they received.