Can these numbers possibly be real?

The lead story yesterday on POLITICO's Illinois Playbook was Census Down for the Count, addressing the impact that undercounting may have on particular local communities. This sentence jumped out at me (emphasis mine):

Illinois is ahead of the national average with a 72 percent response rate compared to 69 percent. But Chicago lags at about 55 percent.

I don't know, of course, how one can count the percentage of those counted if one does not know the actual count and, if we already know the actual count, how come we're still counting? But, then, it was my inability to complete the 300-level probability and statistics course that kept me from being a math major in college.

But if the compliance percentages are accurate, how can this possibly be?

The first big push for census compliance was underway when the world ended, back in March. We are now entering the eighth month of our two-week shutdown -- but I distinctly recall, during the actual first two weeks of the two-week shutdown, turning on the TV every day at 2:30 p.m., risking exposure, on some days, to whole minutes of Maury if the start of the IDPH briefing was delayed. With all industry, commerce, and ordinary social interaction at a standstill, I was also tuning in most mornings for the City briefing as well. And I also recall, vividly, being annoyed with the Governor and the Mayor prefacing their daily updates on the collapse of civilization as we had known it with virtual commercials about completing the census.

I can't fathom how anyone with a pulse didn't know---in March---about the need to complete and return the census form. I will admit that I hadn't done it before the world ended. But I did do it in March. It gave me something to do while waiting for next press conference.

Now I fully understand that some people, in some communities, may have been reluctant to participate. Even without the Never Ending Pandemic, as the Illinois Playbook noted this morning, referring to Rep. Chuy Garcia's concerns, "many residents born outside of the United States... may fear they’ll be questioned about their citizenship status, something President Donald Trump tried unsuccessfully add to the census." That explains some undercount, surely -- but 45% of the population of the City of Chicago?

The Census Bureau, for its part, said, in a press release Tuesday, that the count is "99.9% complete" with "33.1% counted by census takers and other field data collection operations, and 66.8% of housing units responding online, by phone or by mail." Which is a far cry from 72% compliance in the State of Illinois, or 69% nationally, or 55% in the City of Chicago. Somebody is doing the math wrong.

But, whoever's right, and whoever's wrong on the numbers, if you have not been counted yet, today is the deadline. You must go to the Census 2020 website today and make sure you are not part of the missing .1% -- or the missing 45%.