The pandemic of COVID 19 is upon the world, surpassing the mark of over a million cases. At this point, strict plan of action is needed to control the spread and deal with the rising number of cases. While talking about the COVID 19 response in New Jersey, the State Governor, Phil Murphy said they are in desperate needs of COBOL system programmers. While talking at a press conference, he said the state needs volunteers with "Cobalt" (sic) computer skills to help fix 40-year-old-plus unemployment insurance systems that are currently overwhelmed as a result of COVID-19-related job losses.

For those who do not know much of computer programming, COBOL is a computer language that was developed over 60 years ago. It became obsolete by the year of 1980s. While the systems are still in use today in some software, it is highly unlikely that anyone in the younger age group would have even used the system today or even wrote a line of it. It essentially means, that the majority of experts of this tech would be over 60 years of age, which makes them at a high risk of contracting the COVID 19. People on Twitter are thus making fun and trolling the Governor for relying on outdated software in time of a severe medical crisis. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut May be Quarantined to Contain Coronavirus Pandemic in US: Donald Trump.

Watch Video of Governor Demanding COBOL Programmers in COVID 19 Response Conference:

Check Some Tweets on COBOL Programmers in Demand:

What Year is It?

How the Fight Will Look Against Coronavirus

The COBOL Programmers Right Now

Oops!

Not a Good Sign

How the Programmers Would Report

The state of New Jersey needs COBOL coders because its benefits system has is unable to deal with the surge of requests for unemployment payments. However, people familiar with the redundancy of the program are not impressed with the demand and have taken to the internet to joke about it.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 05, 2020 02:06 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).