Gail Alexan­der

The Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice is ex­plor­ing new ways to con­duct the 2021 Pop­u­la­tion Cen­sus fol­low­ing on­go­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing mea­sures be­ing adopt­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

This was in­di­cat­ed by Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus in Sen­ate on Tues­day.

She said, “In view of the im­pact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, with re­spect to new guide­lines on so­cial in­ter­ac­tion, the CSO is ex­plor­ing the use of tech­nol­o­gy which would in­clude tele­phone in­ter­views, on­line ques­tion­naires, mail-in ques­tion­naires and lim­it­ed face to face in­ter­views.”

She added, “The CSO at present is par­tic­i­pat­ing in on­go­ing di­a­logue with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al sta­tis­ti­cal in­sti­tu­tions to con­sid­er and de­vel­op suit­able method­olo­gies. Sup­port is al­so be­ing ex­plored with the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) and the gov­ern­ment of Cana­da through the Project for the Re­gion­al Ad­vance­ment of Sta­tis­tics in the Caribbean (PRASC) to­wards these ini­tia­tives."

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo al­so on Tues­day changed the Sen­ate’s COVID-19 pro­to­col - which was in place since March - where the num­ber of sen­a­tors in the Cham­ber was re­duced. She said Sen­a­tors can now all re­main in the cham­ber but must ob­serve so­cial dis­tanc­ing rules.