The Covid-19 pandemic is the worst it's ever been in Florida and soaring in Utah as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread.
Despite this, many venues are still not requiring that patrons be fully vaccinated against the virus in order to attend events.
However, this is what prompted comedian Patton Oswalt to cancel some of his upcoming tour dates... which happened to really bother Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
After the conservative outlet The Blaze reported the news of Oswalt's cancellations, Cruz attempted to mock the comedian by saying that "both" of his fans would be "disappointed."
Oswalt has more than just two fans, by the way.
His resume boasts 219 film and television credits, including as one of the stars of The King of Queens, as the male lead inYoung Adult, and as the narrator of television's The Goldbergs.
He's had several well received stand-up comedy specials, winning an Emmy as recently as 2016.
Oh, and he has 4.7 million Twitter followers (more than Cruz's 4.5 million).
Oswalt soon hit back with several witty replies, proving he wasn't about to take any of Cruz's criticism lying down, telling him:
"Not as disappointed as Texas was when you cut your Cancun vacation short and came home."
Oswalt's response harked back to criticism Cruz received for flying to Cancún while millions of people went without food and water as a result of the Texas power disaster in February.
But he didn't stop there.
Oswalt proceeded to shred Cruz in several short and sweet replies, telling him to "return to liquid form" and concluding by referring to him as a "friendless, cowardly embarrassment."
Oswalt's fans ate it up, and it's safe to say he garnered even more followers in the process.
Meanwhile, others criticized Cruz for his Cancún trip as well as for continuing downplay the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Oswalt has no regrets about canceling his shows after venues failed to comply with his requests that attendees show proof of full vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test.
Speaking to his Instagram followers, he said:
"This difficult decision was made due to the rising numbers of Covid cases and also because I have an ego, but my ego is not big enough to think that people should die to hear my stupid comedy."
"So hopefully, hopefully, in the future we can rebook those when sanity holds sway again."
"But this sucks, I was really looking forward to Florida, to Salt Lake City."
Bravo, Mr. Oswalt.
If there's one thing we hope Senator Cruz has learned from all this, it's to never go after a comedian. You just won't win.
@GregAbbott_TX/X
