TRENTON, NJ – Phil Murphy’s COVID-19 math is now making about as much sense as his COVID-19 science as the governor of New Jersey announced this week that he’ll be adding “significantly more” COVID-19 deaths to the state’s official count. Murphy said state workers have been scouring death certificates with a fine-toothed comb, looking for deaths that could be linked to COVID-19, despite no testing or lab work being done on the deceased.
While Governor Phil Murphy claims he is basing his entire COVID-19 operation around science, where is the science of guestimating COVID-19 deaths based reading death certificates. That seems to be a first-year community college statistics based exercise, not medical science with verified lab results with definitive weights and measures.
“As our fellow states have grappled with ensuring a complete picture of the grim toll of COVID-19, so has New Jersey, and for more than a month, our friend Dr. Ed Lifshitz and his team at the Communicable Disease Service,” Murphy said. “[They] have been carefully analyzing thousands of death certificates to identify those residents whose passing can, with a high degree of certainty, now be attributed to complications from COVID-19. Next week I think, Judy, these residents will be recognized alongside our confirmed COVID-19 losses. And as we do this, it will increase our overall toll significantly.”
Murphy also urges all New Jersey residents to get the COVID-19 test.
“But to make sure these measures and these numbers are meaningful, and for us to have the most accurate data to determine the dates of our next steps forward, we also need to get our testing numbers as large as possible,” he added. “So again, I encourage you all to go to get tested…find a testing site near you. We have the testing capacity, we have literally hundreds of locations.”
“There is no reason not to get tested. I’ve got a call after our gathering here today with Admiral Girrier, I think with both Pat and Judy on with me, to talk about where the community-based testing reality is going,” he added. “And it’s sort of 3.30 next generation. Again, everybody get out there and get tested. And as more and more residents are getting back out, the importance of knowing whether or not you are carrying the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 increases greatly.”