Norwich was recently placed under a health advisory by the state Department of Public Health because of the rising number of COVID-19 cases there. Public schools and the Norwich Free Academy high school opted to return to remote learning to discourage viral spread.

So, what has one of Norwich’s state representatives in Hartford been up to? Perhaps working with Mayor Peter A. Nystrom and Gov. Ned Lamont to improve access to testing and tracing? Reaching out to education officials to offer help getting students back into school as quickly and safely as possible?

No, Rep. Doug Dubitsky has been busy leading a fight in state court to have mandates that require students to wear masks declared unconstitutional. The masks that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state can significantly reduce the chances of students spreading the virus to each other or to the teachers, providing a layer of protection to the families they all return home to.

Dubitsky, a Republican, is the attorney for a group called the Connecticut Freedom Alliance. His 47th District begins in northern Norwich and moves north through parts of Lisbon and Lebanon and all of Scotland, Chaplin, Hampton, Canterbury, Sprague and Franklin. Much of this is conservative, Republican territory. But in Dubitsky they are represented by an extremist.

My guess is that Dubitsky is defending the alliance pro bono because he shares their position that ordering folks to wear masks to protect their fellow citizens violates their constitutional rights to be selfish and irresponsible. I would have asked him, but when I called his voicemail was full. I sent him an email asking for him to give me a call. He didn’t.

The Connecticut Freedom Alliance is also against requiring children to be vaccinated before entering public schools. Before vaccines, many children died from diseases that vaccines now prevent, such as whooping cough, measles, and polio. Those same germs exist today. How could anyone welcome their return by advocating for the end of the use of these vaccines?

Parent say the vaccines themselves cause harm, but the science does not show that.

The children whose parents opt them out of getting vaccinated are protected from these diseases because other kids get the vaccines. But as the percentage of children protected drops, the odds of these diseases returning increases, and it has been happening with whooping cough and measles.

Also found on the group’s website is the headline, “CT News about 5G.” That is apparently killing us, too. Maybe Dubitsky will end up in court trying to find a judge to declare cellphones unconstitutional.

The lawsuit claims that the requirement to wear masks puts students “in very significant danger of short-term and long-term physical and psychological harm.” To avoid that harm, parents must keep their children home and that violates their constitutional right to an education.

But Dubitsky has not been able to provide a credible witness to back up the claim. He had planned on the testimony of anti-maskers Dr. James C. Meehan Jr., an Oklahoma ophthalmologist, and Dr. Andrew Kaufman, a New York forensic psychiatrist. Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher rejected both, Meehan because he is an eye doctor and Kaufman because he is irrational.

“The court will not accept as an expert advisor to it on a matter of life and death a man who defies science so firmly established as to be beyond rational dispute,” wrote Moukawsher of Kaufman.

Now Dubitsky has offered up two more “experts” from the fringes of rational thought, which I suspect Moukawsher will find no more credible. The case is continued to Wednesday.

Dubitsky faces Democrat Kate Donnelly, a former Hampton first selectwoman, in his re-election bid. She believes in science. That alone is enough to make her the better choice.

Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.