Despite disruption brought on by the pandemic and then the derecho — and now a dispute over the deadline — Eastern Iowa cities working to get a complete count of their residents say this year’s online census reporting has helped amid all the uncertainty.Most Iowa residents already have taken advantage of the new option of responding online, which local government officials say has made the census more accessible — especially while the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted business as usual.But for those who haven’t, the big question is: How much longer do they have to respond?Days after a federal judge ordered the Census Bureau to continue enumerating for another month beyond the early deadline it set for Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the agency, announced he intends to end counting next week.“The Secretary of Commerce has announced a target date of October 5, 2020, to conclude 2020 Census self-response and field data collection operations,” according to a Census Bureau announcement Monday on Twitter.The agency provided no further information or rationale for the new end date.