DG urges civil servants to take part in census

| 21/10/2021 | 66 Comments
Cayman News Service
Census worker (from ESO social media)

(CNS): With the census now underway behind a shield of face masks and sanitizer, the deputy governor is urging civil servants to be “model interviewees” and do their part in the national count. Most enumerators conducting the house to house census are civil servants, and Franz Manderson thanked them for taking on “a mammoth task”. He asked the government’s army of employees to welcome the enumerators “when they knock on the door”, to be prepared to answer their questions and to do so safely with masks and keeping a safe distance.

The census should have take place in 2020 but was cancelled because of the pandemic. It was delayed an additional two days on Grand Cayman as officials worked out how they were going to include around 1550 residents in quarantine but who nevertheless need to be counted.

While around 75% of people in Cayman have now taken the two-dose vaccine course, there is no mandate for census workers to be vaccinated. According to the latest figures released by the DG, just over 70% of all civil servants are vaccinated.

Nevertheless, the crucial count, which takes place every ten years, is going ahead and the enumerators will be asking all the usual census questions to paint a picture of population, the housing stock and how we live.

This time around there will be questions about activities people do, such as fishing and agriculture, as well as their feelings and situation relating to things such as crime, disability, literacy and poverty. There will also be questions on renewable energy production, and environmentally friendly activities, which will provide us with long-needed and vital data.

The census is Cayman’s single largest statistical exercise, producing raw data to advise and inform government planning in the short, medium and long term. No individual personal census data is ever shared by the Economics and Statistics Office (ESO), the deputy governor said in his message to public servants.

“Confidentiality is a priority with all of ESO’s Labour Force Surveys, which, incidentally, have one of the highest response rates in the region,” he said.

Many civil servants have been involved in the census process, from the planning stages that began years ago to the ongoing education campaign, which will continue until the end of next month. Manderson asked those who will be counted to be “Caymankind” and cooperate with enumerators and encourage others to do the same.

“Let us play our parts in getting to know our islands better. It will only help us as we work and as we advance into the future. I wish the Census Team every success for a smooth and productive census exercise,” the DG added.


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Comments (66)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Not all enumerators are Civil servants….some of us are just ordinary persons helping the ESO to get the Census completed. Please know it is not our fault that the Census is being conducted this way so refrain from being disrespectful to us especially if we have not been disrespectful to you.

    We kindly ask for your co-operation (whether outside your home or by phone)for the Census then you will not need to see our faces afterwards. And yes some of us are vaccinated by choice and we can gladly show you the proof to make you more comfortable.

  2. Anonymous says:

    My census taker was a very polite young man, masked and double vaccinated. He thanked me for “allowing” ( his word) him into my home. But this census is different from past ones and has one or two odd questions ( which, to be fair, he said I could avoid answering). Leave aside the silly religious one ( what the hell does it matter but I suppose the Ministers Association influence is still unfortunately strong here). But the “are you legally married” one seems rather strange in this day and age.

    • Anonymous says:

      I agree. I was disappointed that she didn’t have any questions about sexual fantasies anywhere on the form. However, I did manage to give a couple of answers to questions that she took note of and said she would have to ask her supervisor what category to place them in.

  3. Anonymous says:

    How much do they get paid?
    This appears to be a national priory to get my details?

    I must be the ONLY house in Patrick’s Island/ Prospect area? The Census lady came 3 times!! **Twice my teenager said parents were not home, the third time I was getting into my car to leave (and I said, “very sorry I always participate in the important nationwide census, but was not comfortable with anyone unvaccinated coming into the home”) she said we could do it outside – well, that is not comfy for me and 5PM weeknight mosquitos 🙂 I gave her my phone number, and asked if I could do it over the phone? She agreed and phoned once- I replied with a better and scheduled time…. I’ve waited a few more days and NO phone call. Come on, I DO have a calendar and will keep my phone appointment people.

    Week, She came back TODAY (with a Supervisor!) the boss showed me her vaccination QR code on her phone, but still…. They had my phone number already and the knock on the door Noon on a Sunday?

    This is getting ridiculous. I will participate as I instructed them to PHONE me at 3PM today Sunday, but I do feel my arm is now twisted by a supervisor coming to my house too.

    So…. Visit number #4 I must be the only house in my neighborhood left on a Sunday?

    Grrrrrrr….

    • Anonymous says:

      5:15PM update.

      I’ve waited all day for the phone call??

    • Anonymous says:

      Should be online. And if door to door should all be unvaccinated. Absolute disgrace.

    • Anonymous says:

      The Civic servants doing the census are getting their regular wages the end of each month. Plus they getting paid plenty extra to do the census, that’s why they doing it, when in their regular jobs, Plenty of them won’t even answer their work phones , so don’t think they are doing it for charity and not getting paid big extra for doing the census.

  4. Anonymous says:

    I missed my “Census Enumerator” on the day she was in my neighbourhood. but she left a card with her phone number which indicated that the survey could be done by phone. It survey telephone call lasted less than 10 minutes .. I did my part wit no risk of covid-19!

  5. Anonymous says:

    I prefer keeping privacy, just like my health choices.

  6. Anonymous says:

    I refuse to participate in the door-to-door census campaign. I think the census takers should be treated respectfully…however, I have zero, no, none, zilch, nada respect for government leaders who–in the face of rising Covid community spread numbers–send people from household to household day in and day out. That is totally effed up. I have been advised by a census official that the interview CAN be conducted over the phone. In that case why in the hell are these numbskulls sending census takers in person door to door to peoples’ homes? This make no sense at all! How can we have faith in our leaders ability to control C19 if their idea of safe conduct is sponsoring an increase in the potential for community spread? When they come to your place, just hand your phone number to the census taker through a slightly cracked opening in the door, or under the door, or ask them to back off and tape it to the door and tell them to call you. I am vaxed. My primary reason to be vaxed is to reduce potential for being infected and stem the spread of Covid. I refuse to be a live participant in the in-person census madness.

  7. Anonymous says:

    C’mon folks…lets support our government. Please be civilized and respect the workers.

    SY

    • Anonymous says:

      Too many in the civil service show contempt for the citizenry. They waste our money, do favors for their friends, and now want to conduct their survey in a way likely to spread an infectious disease, despite the fact that technology exists to automate most of the process. They are unwilling to protect my family by simply being vaccinated while asking or even requiring the rest of us to be vaccinated. The workers do deserve to be treated with respect.

    • Anonymous says:

      Why should we when some census workers and government employees are not vaccinated. There is no valid excuse to not be vaccinated and it is unacceptable.

    • Anonymous says:

      Is there any good reason why an anonymous population survey should require our names, ages, employer names, income, marriage status, and religion? So much for GDPR.

  8. Anonymous says:

    Most ridiculous census I have ever done. Showed up in the middle of me cooking dinner, refused to come back, insisted he needed to search my property for some other apartment that doesn’t exist. Took nearly 1 hour, for absolutely nothing as I’m confident the details were not correctly entered. Waste of time. Wake up Cayman. This is the 21st century, there are other ways to do this. Stop knocking at my door at dinner.

  9. Anonymous says:

    I assume all census workers have to be vaccinated?

    • Anonymous says:

      No. They are exempt from any such requirement. They are also exempt from the immigration law. Hell, they seem to be exempt from everything. We just have to do what they say.

    • Anon says:

      Why would that matter? They could still have Covid, be in your home, and transmit it to you and your loved ones. Your vaccine doesn’t stop that from happening. They should have the census done online or call people and do it over the phone.

      • Anonymous says:

        Sure, we might as well give them our IP addresses while we’re answering all the other personal identifiers.

  10. Anonymous says:

    Nice as they were, our census worker was recording our data for a different electoral district than the one we were standing in. It was a harbinger of the time we would waste together.

  11. Anonymous says:

    We did this, with some reluctance, because we had understood this exercise to have been suspended?!? Took about half an hour out in the mosquitos with a series of the most inane and obsolete questions of any census so far. Like it was designed by a 12 year old. Total waste of everybody’s time and should be both anonymous and online.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Perhaps he could mandate that they participate?

  13. Anonymous says:

    I’m in quarantine. Did my census a couple of days ago over the phone. The lady who came was pleasant and had no issues with this. It didn’t take long as I had reviewed the questions beforehand which are posted on the census website.

    The only thing which bothered me was the fact that the census workers are logged onto their computer entering data as they go. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE SOLUTION FROM THE START. Each residence could be assigned a unique code and then people should be able to log into the website and enter their answers directly.

  14. Anonymous says:

    They should cancel this; going to people’s home at this time is ludicrous.

  15. Anonymous says:

    Says who?

  16. Anonymous says:

    Stay in the yard. Better yet out by the road. No need to come close.

  17. Anonymous says:

    Thank you DG. I had a wonderful experience with the census takers.

    I was happy to all answer all questions.

  18. Anonymous says:

    Why couldn’t they have just set up a secure website and people just down load the form with the questions – fill it out and submit it? Rather than a stranger coming to your house asking personal questions.

    • Anonymous says:

      They actually have a census portal on their website, but only these door-to-door walkies can log in. They poke and hunt key-punch while you wait.

  19. Anonymous says:

    It took 55 minutes to complete the census interview last week. They need to speed it up.

    • Anonymous says:

      They ask me questions like how many TV i have, is my water heater/stove electric or gas, did i earn money for one hour or did favours for family in certain week in October,etc, etc, etc, questions like that i though was NOT necessary.

      • Anonymous says:

        …and still asking how many radios? What is that for? If they want to ask where we get our news and info, that would be a better question to ask in the internet age. There are many dated and faulty inferences baked into the framework. “Who is HEAD of HOUSEHOLD”…there isn’t one, because it’s 2021.

        • Anonymous says:

          That one threw me. I literally had to think if I had a radio in the house. The thought crossed my mind that they meant radio via tv or google.

  20. Anonymous says:

    Are we allowed to opt out of all of the irrelevant questions? Some of the questions have absutely no bearing on a population count and therefore go against the Data Protection Law that was passed.

    • Anonymous says:

      It is also likely a breach of the Public Health Act, and may well contribute to the spread of a deadly disease. But who cares about laws around here!

    • Anonymous says:

      Yes, we asked worker to just enter “person A”, “B”, etc. Nobody needs to know our names or phone numbers on a population census. Office of the Ombudsman should be all over ESO for asking and recording personal identifiers for no reason.

    • Beaumont Zodecloun says:

      Simple. Just don’t answer those questions you find to be intrusive. It’s a time-honoured response during the census. The people conducting the census — they aren’t the enemy; in fact, there IS no enemy. I guess I am just old enough and hard-headed enough to refuse to answer that which I deem to be nobody’s business but my own.

  21. Anonymous says:

    Here the deal Franz, if one of them comes to my house I must see their vaccination card. If not, they will not be allowed in. If you don’t have the balls to do your part then why should I..

    This census is very important for the country and you as the Deputy Governor really needs to grow a pair and do the right thing.

  22. Robert Mugabe IV says:

    This is getting more batsiht crazy by the day now.
    I was never going to answer the door to any census worker during a Pandemic. Amazingly they are still
    going ahead now while admitting unvaxxed workers will be knocking our doors.
    Just on principle alone, there is no way I will co-operate with the census teams when our own govt have mandated a huge portion of the islands labour force to be vaccinated yet not our own civil servants. It’s just so so wrong.

  23. Neverwannabeacivilservant says:

    Great display of civic duty by our Civil Service enumerators. By the way how much are they paid for doing this, and was anyone else offered the opportunity?.

  24. Anonymous says:

    Fine. Please bring your vacination card.

  25. Anonymous says:

    No border opening, no data.

  26. Anonymous says:

    Enumerators all vaccinated? Nope.

  27. Anonymous says:

    You want unvaccinated workers to go house to house during a pandemic? My God, how out of touch with reality are these people?

    • Anonymous says:

      Civil servants. They exist in an alternative universe. Blindly follow instructions. Do not think. No accountability. Ever.

    • Anonymous says:

      We are not the brightest people.

    • Anonymous says:

      Do you have any idea of how many unvaccinated people you are in contact with, on a daily basis? The people at supermarkets, restaurant, work, school, church, neighbours .. stop picking on census workers.

      • Anonymous says:

        I come in contact with zero unvaxed people in my home. I do not go to school. I do not eat out. I do not go to church. I work from home. I go to shopping infrequently as I stock up and when I do, I go just as the store opens on off days, mask up, sanitise and maintain social distance. I will not participate in the mindlessly benighted household-hopping live interview Census. They have instructions to call me and I expect they will.

  28. Beaumont Zodecloun says:

    I don’t have a problem with the census. For this household, it has always been conducted outside. I may choose to not answer certain questions. No worries.

    • Anonymous says:

      Same here except I choose to answer none. These people do not know what confidentiality is. They think blabbing to friends and family without mentioning names keeps things confidential.

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