Sanford Health’s president and chief executive, Kelby Krabbenhoft, said in an email Wednesday that he believes he’s now immune to the disease for “at least seven months and perhaps years to come” and that he isn’t a threat to transmit it to anyone, so wearing a mask would be merely for show.

Sanford Health, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has 46 hospitals and more than 200 clinics concentrated in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.

“For me to wear a mask defies the efficacy and purpose of a mask and sends an untruthful message that I am susceptible to infection or could transmit it,” Krabbenhoft wrote in the email, obtained by The Associated Press.

Kathy Anderson, president of the North Dakota Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Krabbenhoft’s message was “definitely not helpful” and “an especially dangerous message to be sending right now in North Dakota.”.

It’s hard for ordinary people to know what to believe given all the conflicting messages they’re getting, Anderson said.

And she said it’s important for people to know he is not a physician.

“I think one of the things is that we have really tried hard to get the public’s support for wearing a mask and social distancing,” she said.

Krabbenhoft told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader for a story published Friday that he doesn’t think South Dakota needs a mask mandate.

But another major regional health system, Sioux Falls-based Avera, told a South Dakota lawmaker on Friday that it now supports mask mandates after stopping short of backing them before

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people to wear masks because they help prevent people who are infected — whether they know it or not — from spreading the coronavirus