Johnson County pediatrician running for school board is against COVID safety measures
A Johnson County pediatrician and school board candidate has been called a hypocrite online for having repeatedly downplayed the COVID-19 pandemic — even as her medical practice urges patients to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for staying safe.
With more children being hospitalized, the COVID-19 delta variant has forced Kansas City area school districts to require masks in grades K-12.
Yet Dr. Christine White, a candidate for the Blue Valley school board, trivializes the threat of a pandemic resurgence that is increasingly sickening children. She spoke out last fall against any proposal to penalize Johnson County businesses that don’t comply with COVID restrictions, and even organized a rally against quarantining students.
In an April Facebook post, which appears to have been deleted, she maintained that viruses are only spread by symptomatic people, which is absolutely not true, and went so far as to question Blue Valley’s motives for testing asymptomatic students: “Why does Blue Valley want this information on our children?” she asked in the post. “I believe it is to show a certain level of (mainly false) positive PCR tests, and then they can prolong the time our children will be required to wear a mask, social distance, have their temps taken and other unnecessary actions that just increase our children’s fear and anxiety about their world.”
Ignorance being worse than fear, the good doctor should read the vast medical information on asymptomatic spread — with one study blaming it for 50% of COVID infections.
In front of the Johnson County Commission last November, White downplayed COVID-19, saying, “Life is not without risk in America. Our two biggest risks of death are heart disease and cancer. If you are a high-risk individual, either because of your age or medical conditions, then you can decide to remove yourself from society in order to avoid contracting coronavirus.”
We’ve seen the folly of that argument play out in countless tragedies this past year and a half, thanks in large part to the irrational opposition to masks.
Deleted Facebook post about mask exemption for child
Children’s Mercy Hospital — which White’s Johnson County Pediatrics group is affiliated with — recently reported record numbers of COVID patients as well as tests and positivity rates.
“The data, if you TRULY read it and not just take what we are fed on the nightly news,” says one apparently deleted section of White’s campaign site obtained by The Star, “will show you there is no GOOD evidence that masks stop the spread of COVID-19.”
But in a Facebook post Tuesday, her Johnson County Pediatrics group wrote “to affirm and reemphasize our commitment to protection for our patients. It is important to us that our patients and families take steps to protect yourselves, your loved ones and our community.
“The physicians at Johnson County Pediatrics agree, without exception, with the guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC concerning wearing masks and the need for people 12 and older to get vaccinated for (COVID-19). All of our physicians have received the vaccine.” That includes White, which has riled those who’ve seen her downplaying the threat.
In a May 27 post that likewise appears to have been deleted from White’s campaign Facebook page, she describes how she got her 16-year-old a mask exemption that day that she’ll use this fall if necessary. She applauded those who she says have “the bravery and decency to help children attend school this year (and next year if needed) mask free. Masks should be optional for children come fall of 2021. Both inside and out.”
Moreover, on her campaign website, White writes, “It is time to get kids back to school without fear. It is time to start living our lives.”
Funny thing, but all of that is in direct conflict with what the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics advise, which her medical group colleagues posted they agree with “without exception.” So, which is it?
Her District 5 Blue Valley school board opponent Gina Knapp says she finds White’s positions on COVID protocols incongruent with her medical colleagues’ publicly stated posture. To say the least.
Dr. White, who did not return our messages, owes some answers to Blue Valley voters, to her medical colleagues and to her patients.