JoCo pediatrician quits school board race, says delta convinced her to push for masks
Johnson County pediatrician Dr. Christine White’s controversial run for the Blue Valley Board of Education is over, as it had to be.
She announced her decision in a Facebook post Thursday evening, adding that even if elected — it’s too late to remove her name from the ballot — “I will resign the position to allow another community volunteer to serve in that capacity.”
It’s a gracious end to a tumultuous blow-up, completely of her own making. Her strongly worded, oft-repeated view and campaign platform that masks in school should be optional not only conflicted with the publicly stated policy of her medical group — which is to follow guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — but also conflict sharply with what she’s now saying.
After quite literally rallying public opinion against COVID health protocols in Blue Valley schools last fall, White wrote in her post Thursday that she now wants to focus on “educating patients and their families about how to limit their exposure to COVID-19.”
And while she laments that figuring out “how to live in a pandemic has also divided communities,” her strident opposition to mask mandates and quarantines did exactly that.
Still, it’s gratifying to see her finally write that it was the highly transmissible delta variant that made her change her mind on mask requirements. “It is extremely important that our kids get to attend school in person, and wearing masks can ensure that occurs,” she wrote.
Well, yes. Most of the rest of us already knew that, even without a medical degree, but after her misguided statements to the contrary, her new awareness of that reality is what the public and, most of all, her anti-mask supporters need to hear. Even after White announced she changed her mind on masks, some of her anti-mask supporters were writing on Facebook that “she still very much supports (our) cause.”
Although no longer running for office, White should keep campaigning — this time, as she has pledged, for wearing masks, especially in schools. Hospitals have filled up with children stricken with the delta variant, and schools across the nation and in the Kansas City area have seen cases explode just days after reopening. COVID-19 denial, meanwhile, is so strong that some patients cling to it even as they’re dying.
If Dr. White truly wants to “be a part of collaborative efforts to educate the public that wearing masks, getting the COVID-19 vaccine when eligible, socially distancing and practicing hand hygiene all play an important role in stopping the spread,” we hope she succeeds in convincing her own former supporters.