With all the criticism of college students in the news recently partying during spring break while officials were encouraging “social distancing” to help prevent the spread of the Chinese virus COVID-19, Fox News’ Jesse Watters gave two students a platform to respond.
The host of “Watters’ World” asked Shelby Cordell, “Before you went down to Florida, had you heard that maybe it would not be a good idea to just gather in large groups of people, and share beers and smokes?”
Cordell was featured in a clip ran at the start of the segment, which showed her talking about trying to “get drunk before everything closes.”
In a more sober reflection on events, the student now insists that the clip is not a true representation of who she is.
“Before I left, in my hometown none of the bars and restaurants were not closed yet,” Cordell said. “They had put on the news, on social media, the bars, advertising online schooling, ‘lets party in our local bars’ and stuff like that.”
“It was not as serious until things — then changed fast,” she said. “Unfortunately, that video saw, is not good, it isn’t misconception of who I am as a person. I don’t think this is funny. I do take it very seriously.”
Cordell’s defensive stance prompted Watters to offer her a little reassurance.
“I’m not trying to come down hard on you because I don’t think a lot of Americans realized the severity of the virus,” he said. “I think everybody came to that conclusion at their own time. So I’m not here to lecture you or anything like that.
“I mean, it was a bad judgment call, but that’s neither here nor there,” Watters added.
Turning to the second student featured in the segment, Kylie Marquez, the Fox News host asked her if she had any regrets about making a spring break trip to Florida.
“No, I don’t regret it,” Marquez said. “I just wish I would’ve been there a little earlier before everything started getting bad.”
“So why don’t you regret it?” Watters asked. “You are aware that young people can get coronavirus and then they can give it to their parents, their grandparents — you don’t want to do that, do you?”
“No, I don’t want to do that,” she replied, before explaining why she had no regrets.
“I don’t regret it because I feel like I kept my distance from people as much as I could when going on the beaches and stuff like that,” Marquez told Watters. “The only time I was really around big groups of people are the two times I went out to dinner. Other than that, I had a really good time.”
Watters asked the students if their friends now understand that the pandemic should be taken seriously, and they assured him that they now do. He then reminded them if college students contract the disease and give it to their parents or grandparents, they will have no one to pay for school.
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The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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