Joe Biden needs to get out more.

By hibernating in his Delaware basement for the past nine months he seems unaware that all across America people are wearing masks. I can’t remember the last time I saw a bare-faced person at the post office, supermarket or Target.

Yet yesterday Biden boldly declared that when he becomes president he plans to ask Americans to follow his lead and wear masks for 100 days.

What a novel idea, Rip Van Winkle. Why not suggest social distancing too?

News flash, Joe. There are 37 states with mask mandates and most of the others recommend them. I hate to break it to you, Mr. Former Vice President, but Covid-19 is spiking in places with the most restrictive executive orders just as it is in the states without them.

Take Los Angeles, for instance. They’ve had universal masking, bans on indoor and outdoor dining, curfews, and they’ve kept themes parks and entertainment venues closed and have no fans at sporting events. Yet guess what? The virus is doing what viruses do. It’s spreading.

Still, Biden seems to believe in the magical properties of cloth. During his rare forays into public during the campaign he would always wave a mask around and say that if people would just wear them tens of thousands of lives would be saved.

Now he’s saying that mask wearing will end on April 29, 2021. As if anyone would believe it. That’s more than 400 days after Americans were suckered into “15 days to flatten the curve.”

At one time during the campaign, after some poll must have showed support for more authoritarian behavior in Washington, Biden threatened a national mask mandate once he was elected. Eventually, the dolts writing his material figured out that the president had no authority to tell Americans what to wear on their faces and Biden backpedaled, saying he would lean on governors and mayors to mandate masks for him.

Now Biden says he’ll pressure states - remember, there are only 13 without mandates - into forced masking of the populace through an always-popular form of presidential extortion: withholding federal highway funds. (It’s the threat of losing that loot that keeps states from lowering the drinking age from 21 to a more sensible 18, which might prevent binge drinking on campuses. But that’s a topic for another day.)

Most governors issued mask mandates in the spring and early summer when infection rates had already spiked and were beginning to drop. When the virus retreated during the summer, many credited their mask mandates. Now that infections are on the rise, officials have no choice but to remonstrate with the public and pretend compliance with face coverings is the problem.

We’re wearing them. What more do they want?

On Wednesday, Gov. Ralph Northam blamed a Southwest Virginia surge in cases on nearby Tennessee where there is no mask mandate. OK, fine. We all need a scapegoat. Might as well be the Volunteer State.

And there’s more. Biden told Jake Tapper on CNN last night that he intends to make sure everyone flying on an airplane is wearing a mask.

Why do reporters let Biden get away with this stuff? If I’d been doing the interview, I’d ask if he was aware that airlines were already so strict about masks that entire families have been booted before takeoff when cranky toddlers pulled off their masks. The airlines made these rules so they could give passengers a sense of safety. They didn’t need someone in Washington yapping at them and making unnecessary rules.

This is actually sad.

Biden has no idea how to stop the virus, other than to kill time until the infection rate - combined with vaccinations- brings us to herd immunity. At that point he’ll claim victory.

Yet he keeps blaming Trump - the man who brought us Operation Warp Speed and a vaccine - for America’s death toll without offering any solution himself.

Northam said Wednesday that the vaccine will be everywhere by spring. Just in time for Biden’s mask burning.

How convenient for the man who apparently snoozed through most of the pandemic.