PLAYING DOCTOR

North Dakota Official Uses Rape Victims to Oppose Mask Mandate

Bismarck City Commissioner Mark Splonskowski also claimed Vitamin D supplements are more effective than masks at preventing COVID. There is no evidence that’s true.

People who oppose mask mandates have come up with all sorts of insane reasons why they can’t abide them: They’ll cause carbon dioxide poisoning (nope!), they don’t work (oh, but they do!), they’ll increase crime (c’mon). Now comes Mark Splonskowski, a city commissioner in Bismarck, North Dakota, with the reason he can’t support masks: He says they’re bad for “rape and strangled” victims. “They have some psychological issues going on, major psychological issues,” Splonskowski said, according to InForum. “I don’t even want to know what they go through when their breath is stifled.”

Splonkowski further distinguished himself during a commission meeting by saying that Vitamin D supplements would be more effective than masks—even though there is no definitive evidence that the vitamin is effective against the virus. Did we mention that Splonkowski is not a doctor? An actual doctor, Deborah Birx, visited Bismarck this week and was appalled at the low levels of mask wearing in a state undergoing a massive COVID-19 surge. The next day, Splonkowski’s colleagues passed a monthlong mask mandate.