I am sure you read the article, so I am sure you know that this was the advice of her primary care provider and the coronavirus hotline.

The author's whole point is there are contradictory approaches being taken.

"Just in case, I went to my primary care practice...When I said I wondered if I had the coronavirus, the nurse told me I should have gone straight to the hospital."

"A few days later, I developed a fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, and tremors in my hands."

"Last Tuesday, after a night fever of 100.8, I called the new New York State coronavirus hotline. I was told to go to the hospital for a test."

"But the attending doctor came in without a mask and offered his bare hand for a shake. He assured me that I was low-risk because I hadn’t been to an epidemic country like Italy, South Korea, or China. The hospital would not test me, since I did not meet the hospital’s criterion for testing, travel to one of those countries...If I felt sick, stay home, and if I felt well, go out. I should only come to the hospital if I felt sick enough to need hospitalization."

The authority of a stackexchange thread notwithstanding - ER and urgent care visits are what happens when primary care physicians cannot accept same-day consultations with patients. By all means try to call your primary doctor, but if they can't see you that day I would ask them if the prudent course of action is to seek immediate medical care at the ER or urgent care.

Per the article:

He saw his PCP same day, they examined him, but said he should go to the ER.

He called the CoronaVirus hotline, which also said he should go to the ER.

She

Yep, I passed out just after a surgery so I went to the ER. If it was before 5:30 I'd had called/visited my doctor. If I had arrived at 9PM instead of 9:30 I would have used the urgent care. So I went to the closest medical services in 200 miles.