‘Wildly flawed’: Children’s hospital president rips Clovis school board over COVID remarks

A Fresno-area hospital leader is condemning trustees with the Clovis Unified School District for comments about dealing with coronavirus made during a board meeting last week.

In a letter addressed to Clovis school board president Dr. Stephen Fogg, Valley Children’s Healthcare CEO Todd Suntrapak described a variety of the comments made during the meeting as “inaccurate, and even wildly flawed” in their reference to the hospital and to the COVID pandemic.

“On behalf of my organization, its professionals, and the children we serve, it is critically important that I set the record straight,” he wrote in the letter, dated Aug. 5.

The six-page letter offers a snapshot of the “significant amount of evidence about kids, COVID-19,” and is linked with the latest national, state and local data on the effects of COVID-19 on children.

It’s also pointed in its counter to claims made by trustees.

In response to comments about national and regional guidance not being useful because the organizations issuing the guidance aren’t from the area and/or don’t understand Clovis, Suntrapak wrote, ”I truly believe your board did not mean to accept the flawed position that CUSD could possibly have a separate and distinct COVID experience, carved out from the rest of Fresno County, California or the nation.”

“A pandemic does not respect the boundary line that makes a demarcation between the city of Clovis, or its school district, apart from Fresno or Selma or Madera,” he wrote.

“Clearly, as a school district mandated under all applicable laws, I know that you follow the guidelines of many professional organizations on math, music, sports and more. They raise universal standards created by organizations that ‘don’t live here’ either.”

The letter also rebukes a claim that a trustee had been to Valley Children’s Hospital and “didn’t find a lot of people in the ICU that were being treated for COVID.”

“Obviously, anyone wandering around Valley Children’s Intensive Care Units without authorization raises serious patient safety and privacy issues that I will need to address separately. But, for now, I can assure the board that outside voices are in no position to make factual determinations about the level of a particular illness or disease in any of our departments.”

At issue at the July 29 board meeting was the state’s mask mandate and whether parents would be allowed to exempt their children from wearing masks when Clovis Unified returns to classes.

Parents protested outside the meeting and trustees eventually voted to give parents the option of exempting their children without a doctor’s order.

“Masks are well-documented to slow the spread of the pandemic — along with the spread of other childhood illnesses like the flu or RSV. Wearing a mask does not inhibit a child’s breathing, make them sick, or transmit bacteria,” Suntrapak wrote.

“The national recommendations for kids to get back to school wearing a mask is one we fully support.”

The letter comes as the state reports that 13.1% of California’s COVID-19 cases have been in children.

Valley Children’s Hospital is experiencing increases in testing, positivity rates and hospitalizations similar to those seen across the state and in Fresno County. In Fresno County, hospitalizations of patients under the age of 18 has increased by 20% since May, according to the county’s department of Public Health.

Valley Children’s had twice as many COVID-19 hospitalizations in July than it did in June, according to statistics included in the letter.

Emergency department visits rose from 13 to 81.

The number of positive COVID tests jumped from 37 in June to 133 in July.

“Our job, as health professionals and civic leaders, is to translate the abundance of data into the best decisions for our children,” Suntrapak wrote.

“At Valley Children’s, we operate from a set of facts that inform our decisions.”

Clovis school board president responds

On Saturday, Dr. Fogg said that had he seen the letter and responded with an email thanking Suntrapak and the hospital’s board for passing along such great information.

“I really appreciated Valley Children’s for reaching out,” he said.

“What you observe is not always reality. You need as much information as possible to make good decisions. It’s my responsibility to find that info and they are helping.”

Fogg said the school board and the hospital both want the same things. He continues to advocate for parents — and eligible children — to get vaccinated. And the district is still following the state mask mandates, while trusting parents to make choices for their children, without having the burden of getting in to see a pediatrician, something that can be difficult with school approaching so quickly.

“That’s where it comes from,” he said.

“We on the Clovis board feel that our parents are intelligent and caring people and they will make the right decisions or the their children.”

This story was originally published August 7, 2021 at 2:15 PM.