Through a Mirror Darkly, or Life in the Time of Coronavirus COVID-19: The Saga Continues

The number of confirmed cases and fatalities as of March 15, 2019. Credit: Johns Hopkins University. 

Life in America in the time of Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19):

An ex-beauty queen from Nevada, Katie Williams, has become the poster child for entitled, coddled, and contrarian conservatives who laugh in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.

On Saturday, Ms.Williams, who became notorious last year as the Trump-supporting Miss Nevada who was uncrowned by the Miss Nevada organization for violating its ban on political commentary on social media by contestants, bragged about going to a local Red Robin burger joint in defiance of the federal government's recommendation of social distancing to prevent COVID-19's spread.

In response to a tweet by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY 14 District) that called for young adults (in the 20-30 age bracket) to avoid gathering at restaurants and bars to help contain the coronavirus, Ms. Williams had this to say:

Screenshot of the infamous tweet. 

In case you can't make out the tweet on this screenshot, Ms. Williams, who is running for a seat in the Board of Trustees of the Clark County School District in Nevada, wrote:

I just went to a crowded Red Robin and I'm 30.

It was delicious, and I took my sweet time eating my meal. Because this is America. And I'll do what I want.

5:16 PM · Mar 14, 2020·Twitter for Android

Katie Williams, aka #CoronaKatie. Photo Credit: Larry Brown Sports

I'm not a gambler, but I'm willing to bet at least a few bucks that:

• Katie Williams put that tweet out to get attention 
• If President Donald Trump had tweeted what Ocasio-Cortez said on his own hook, Katie Williams would have retweeted and said, "Responsible Americans should err on the side of caution and practice social distancing, at least till the CDC advises otherwise!"
• Ms. Williams is a spoiled, coddled, entitled millennial 
• Her chances of winning the School Board seat have shrunk considerably

Of course, now the former Miss Nevada 2019 has earned the unflattering sobriquet of "Corona Katie," and the hashtag #CoronaKatie was trending as of yesterday. She also has some support in the Twitterverse, much of it coming from white conservatives who proudly proclaim that they are Trump 2020 voters. But most of the comments on #CoronaKatie's tweets regarding the issue of her Red Robin meal are not supportive at all.

Here are just a few representative tweets in response to Ms. Williams' ignorant tweets:

#CoronaKatie  Fake internet MAGA tough girl @realkatiejow thirsty for cred, brags about her poor culinary taste and scoffs at the serious. USA USA!

Everyone worried about Katie Williams getting coronavirus, but I'm afraid she's sick with something much more serious. Katie is D-U-M-B Positive #CoronaKatie

If I were young and healthy without underlying conditions like #CoronaKatie, I'd be using my sense of security to volunteer--deliver food to at risk people who can't shop, babysit for healthcare workers whose kids' schools have closed...

Hmm...I don’t know, Einstein. How about:
a.) You can have it and SHOW NO SYMPTOMS (and STILL SPREAD IT)
b.) You have no way of knowing that you don’t have it because YOU HAVEN’T BEEN TESTED
&
c.) Your selfishness and stupidity is literally going to kill people
#CoronaKatie

More of #CoronaKatie's wit and wisdom. (Racist as hell, I say.)  

As is typical of Trump supporters who can dish it out (ironically, Ms. Williams once accused "leftists" of being "spoiled, coddled, and entitled), #CoronaKatie blocks anyone who criticizes her on Twitter. That, of course, includes me.  And you know what?  I'll wear that badge of honor proudly. 

After all, I'm not the one who is putting other people at risk. As I tweeted directly to her asinine tweet about how can one carry a virus if one is not sick, "Viruses don't knock politely on your door and say, 'Hi. I'm the coronavirus. Mind if I infect you?'"

As another Twitter member observed, Katie Williams is one of the COVID-19 crisis' ready-made villains, along with Tennessee's Matt Colvin.

If Colvin's name sounds familiar to you, it's because he's the Air Force veteran from Hixson who decided to make a small fortune from COVID-19 as a profiteer. According to various news sources, including the New York Times and Tennesse TV station WCRB, Colvin went to several stores in his vicinity and bought 20,000 bottles of hand sanitizer to resell in his Amazon store.

Per the Times:

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic. 

But before Matt and Noah could become Purell tycoons, Amazon put the kibosh on Matt's online store, and he got stuck with 17,700 unsold bottles of hand sanitizer and the aforementioned antibacterial wipes.

Initially, Colvin was unrepentant and tried to justify the unjustifiable. Again, according to the New York Times: 

Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)

Current price-gouging laws “are not built for today’s day and age,” Mr. Colvin said. “They’re built for Billy Bob’s gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane.”

He added, “Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn’t mean it’s not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door.”

But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?


Mr. Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand.

Tennessee's attorney general disagrees with Colvin's "profit before public interest" interpretation of the law. According to a tweet from WCRB reporter Hunter Hoagland:


Matt’s website looks a lot different this morning after

@TNattygen

ordered he and his brother to stop buying and selling. We have reached out to Matt to see when and where the donation is taking place. We have not heard back.

@WRCB

The letter from Tennessee AG Herbert Slattery's office regarding the Colvin Brothers and their hoard of COVID-19 related supplies. Courtesy of Hunter Hoagland. 

You can't make stuff up like this in Coronavirus America. 

Sources:

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them, New York Times article by Jack Nicas, March 14, 2020

Hunter Hoagland Twitter account, tweet of March 15, 2020

@realkatiejow (Katie Williams' Twitter account) and Twitter