Hide your kids and your wife: Ted Cruz didn’t wear a mask on a commercial flight today and the left are having an absolute meltdown over it. This came courtesy of some DCCC flack, who shared photos of an isolated Cruz sitting in an empty row without a mask.

Captured today at 10:45am — @TedCruz on a commercial flight, refusing to wear a mask. pic.twitter.com/h8DM7J4CMi

— Hosseh (@hossehenad) July 13, 2020

He refused! Refused I tell you! Meanwhile, the left chimed in as you’d expect, which was to wish Cruz gets COVID and dies.

I pray @tedcruz is Covid 19 positive in the next 2 weeks. 🙏🏻🙏🏻

— Justice Will Prevail! 2020 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈🌊 (@MBunch3) July 13, 2020

Mask hysteria has reached peak levels and it needs to stop. Just like with the early lockdowns, there’s a difference between idiocy and effectiveness. Yes, social distancing can help stop the spread. Locking yourself in your bedroom was always ridiculous and unnecessary, though. The distancing required via social distancing is perfectly possible in most public places, especially since we know surface spread is not prevalent. Had state governments been less concerned with fear porn early on, we could have encouraged a workable culture of social distancing instead of telling everyone to stay locked up, which likely exacerbated the spread vs. being outdoors.

We are now seeing the same dynamic with masks. Yes, masks may have some marginal effect in certain situations (and even the science on that is sketchy). But that situation is not sitting alone in a row on an airplane. Nor, is it even really being near people in a terminal. The vast majority of masks being worn by people are largely ineffective in stopping anything. The most they are doing is stopping spread via coughing or sneezing on someone, and even then, the droplets can escape through almost all masks being worn by the general public.

As I said this morning on Twitter, we are continually focusing on the least important things when it comes to stopping the spread of the virus.

Best advice still seems to be 1) go outside and 2) socially distance. And this assumes the best course isn’t to let low risk populations go ahead and get the virus if it’s inevitable anyway without a vaccine.

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) July 13, 2020

Note, that we’ve actually seen spikes of the virus occur prior to the push for everyone to wear masks. That says, just like with lockdowns, that there’s very little correlation going on between the proposed mitigation and the spread of the virus. What appears to have worked the best? Going outside and socially distancing. That’s why everyone being forced inside in the South because of the heat has obviously caused spikes. Yet, instead of focusing on that, we are making mask wearing a religious rite.

Of course, all of this assumes that gaining herd immunity isn’t actually preferable, and it may very well be. We are being led by people who value virtue signaling over doing what actually works. That’s how we go from “omg lock down” to “omg wear a mask at all times” in the blink of an eye while the data says neither is close to the most important factor to consider in slowing the spread. I’m not against encouraging others to wear masks. It certainly can’t hurt matters. But we’ve now reached the same levels of stupidity as with lockdowns, where people are pretending that someone going to a beach alone is dangerous. Ted Cruz is not putting anyone in danger by sitting alone without a mask. Period.

Meanwhile, going to a park and reading a book is empirically one of the safest things you can do. Your common sense is far more effective than other’s hysteria.