As an example, let's say there are 100 shares short PRE-SPLIT and they do not cover before the R/S.
What happens after the R/S? Do they now have to cover 100 POST-SPLIT shares? Or does their position also get reverse split, so they would only have to cover 1 POST SPLIT share?
There position would also get the reverse split. Even if they were 'Naked' because the real buyer of the shares would believe that they now have 1 share at 100x the value.