By Matt Rooney
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UPDATE:
The Murphy Administration apparently fixed its quiz after our post…
Some Save Jersey readers, however, are still reporting bogus results…
The best advice? Don’t take online #COVIDー19 quizzes even on government websites.
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Original Post:
Governor Phil Murphy and his fellow elected officials have lectured us – repeatedly in recent say – that they “don’t want us to panic, but to be prepared” (paraphrasing). Panic doesn’t just have deleterious effect on residents ordered to stay at home; it’s overloading testing capacity. The Paramus testing site had to start turning people away 35 minutes after opening!
Well, if Murphy & Co. are serious about wanting to keep panic to a minimum (and getting people tested who NEED to be tested), then they might want to fix their own website’s deeply flawed COVID-19 “self-assessment.”
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I’m referring to the self-assessment online quiz posted over at NJ.gov.
Here’s the link, and here’s the problem:
Even if you select “no” to all of the prompted possible symptoms, you still receive the following response: “Sorry you are feeling sick. It sounds like you have some symptoms that may be related to COVID-19. Contact your healthcare provider, clinician advice line, or telemedicine provider within 24 hours, and start home isolation in case you have COVID-19.”
Excuse me?
A local New Jersey official (in a county with plenty of cases) alerted me to the problem.
I took the quiz myself to see if it was true and, sure enough, asymptomatic people are being warned that they “may” have symptoms related to COVID-19. They’re also being told to self-isolate.
The quiz’s “advice” contradicts the medical consensus that people who (1) aren’t symptomatic and/or (2) haven’t had contact with people who test positive need not freak out and, in so doing, further overburden our strained medical system.
What’s the point of this quiz?
Was it designed this way?
Was this a coding error?
Is the Murphy Administration’s goal to clog first-line medical offices with phone calls from patients who need not worry? I doubt it.
However it happened, the problem with this “everyone is sick” quiz is now brutally clear especially ahead of the opening of New Jersey’s second FEMA testing site in Holmdel on Monday. Shut it down, Murph!
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Save Jersey’s Founder and Blogger-in-Chief, MATT ROONEY is a nationally-noted and respected New Jersey political commentator. When he’s not on-line, radio or television advocating for conservative reform and challenging N.J. power-brokers, Matt is a practicing attorney at the law firm of DeMichele & DeMichele in Haddon Heights (Camden County).
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