“It is harder to have those conversations now, and we worry this will lead to an undercount of precisely those populations that we’re trying to count,” Anand said.

There’s an irony to the situation, she said, as census data feeds into the resource allocation — like medical care funding and food stamps — needed the most right now.

Randi Hewit chairs the grant committee for the New York State Census Equity Fund, which provides financial support to nonprofits doing census outreach. She said the committee has pushed its grantees to come up with new strategies to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

“We had a whole campaign built in community organizing, getting people out of their homes and to places like public libraries to fill out their census forms online. All of that has changed overnight,” said Hewit, who also is president of the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and the Finger Lakes, Inc.

The Census Bureau announced Friday it would delay all census operations by several weeks as the government works to contain the spread of the virus. In the meantime, the agency has tried to shift its messaging to encourage more self-response online, over the phone or through paper forms.