My wife just got back from spending time helping our daughter in Maryland. She flew from Dulles Airport, just outside of Washington, to Ogdensburg. Maryland is on NY State’s list of restricted areas due to high numbers of infected folks. I’m not going to give you a bunch of statistics. Let’s just say that the numbers are not as bad as NY City but they’re worse than Franklin County. Before she got on the plane yesterday, she had filled out a required form online, providing information on her health, where she will be quarantining, and other data having to do with demographics. This form was also printed out and dropped into a little box in the terminal upon her arrival in Ogdensburg.
Then, tonight at dinner time, she got a call from the NY State Department of Health contact tracer employee. Brittany was her name, I think. Brittany asked about my wife’s health today. Then she asked every other question that my wife had answered on the online form. Brittany was just doing her job, I suppose, but why was this necessary? My wife is too nice a person to give a “Government Official” a little bit of feedback. If I had been the returning traveler, I might have asked a few questions. Why do you need all this demographic information again when you already have it? Why do you need a medical history, with questions that have nothing at all to do with the current virus, questions I already answered online yesterday? Why do you need to know my race, something that has absolutely nothing to do with whether I have the virus or not? And what is the point of asking someone if they have dementia? Is a person with dementia going to give a reliable answer to that question? This whole questioning process is intrusive and patently unnecessary.
It seems to me that there are only a few questions that should be asked. What’s your name, address, and phone number? Do you understand what quarantine means? Do you have any of the following virus symptoms? That’s it. That is all they need to know. If they want to call again and ask if there has been any contact with other folks, then I suppose that would be okay. But someone is going to call, email or text my wife everyday for fourteen days. She is required to respond, or a contact tracing official will come to our house to make sure the rules are being obeyed.
Now, I understand that this is a real disease with the possibility of serious consequences, especially to a certain age group. We happen to belong to that age group. But adding a whole level of new bureaucracy to collect mostly useless information that doesn’t have anything to do with tracking infected contacts is just one more example of government excess. And good old New York State is no stranger to government excess.
Well, my wife, being a good citizen and a
good neighbor, will put up with this horse-manure. As I said, she’s much nicer
than I am. So, she’ll be out of touch with you folks for a couple more weeks.
She’s just trying to be sure you all have a nice day.
