Video shows woman bragging about buying a truckload of facemasks from several stores across the US
A Chinese woman has incurred the wrath of social media after she uploaded a video of her seemingly buying a truckload of facemasks from many US stores. The two-minute clip was initially uploaded by the woman on February 3 on Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok.
It quickly made its way to Twitter where it was viewed more than 880,000 times. "A Chinese woman proudly filmed herself buying huge amounts of facemasks from multiple US supermarkets and loaded the masks onto her pickup truck [sic]," the uploader wrote.
In the video, the woman can be seen standing in front of a crate of masks and smiling as she speaks. "It’s so awesome, 3M masks now have 40 masks per pack," she says.
She then shows viewers the back of her pick-up truck, which has been stacked with packs of masks. "Yeah, I’m so happy–so, so, happy!" she continues.
The woman then heads back into the store and talks about how "people outside the city are nicer" and thanks an attendant for helping her with her purchase.
Ever since the video went viral, there has been a lot of hate and vitriol directed at the woman. However, the attacks seem unfair, even unwarranted, as America had very few Covid-19 cases in early February — in fact, on the last day of February, the CDC reported that 15 Americans had tested positive. WHO declared coronavirus a global pandemic on March 11.
The US currently has the highest confirmed number of cases of the novel coronavirus in the world, according to the John Hopkins University dashboard that is tracking the spread of COVID-19 across the globe. More than 216,000 people across the country have contracted the illness, with the death toll crossing 5,000.
In the middle of all this, people have been frantically hoarding medical masks and other supplies; law enforcement agencies have been investigating and prosecuting hoarders as it creates shortages for health professionals who actually need them to keep from spreading illness.
Earlier this week, the FBI arrested Baruch Feldheim, 43, for allegedly peddling and storing as many as 80,000 masks. He was also accused of price-gouging and has been suspected of selling the masks for $12,000 by marking up their price by 700 percent.