WATCH: Arizona Republican attacks mask mandate -- and says we didn't need masks to contain AIDS
A state Republican lawmaker from Arizona this week displayed ignorance over basic biological facts during a speech urging the end of statewide mask mandates.
Tuscon.com reports that Arizona State Rep. Joseph Chaplik this week successfully pushed the Arizona House of Representatives to pass his bill allowing businesses to ignore mask mandates during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
In a speech supporting the bill, Chaplik argued that masks weren't need to stop the spread of past viruses, and thus weren't needed to stop COVID-19.
"The HIV that was going to [lead to] the global destruction of human bodies with AIDS, we heard about that in the '80s," he said. "Yet no masks were required."
There is a very good reason why masks were never required to combat the spread of HIV: Namely, the virus does not spread from person to person through the air, whereas COVID-19 does.
Watch the video below.