Bring back Chris Whitty.

[TrickyD]

As meningitis seems to be spreading, why has the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty not been put in charge of planning and controlling it?

Some people did really seem to live off the drama of Covid and by the looks of things would like to do the same with Men B.

I haven't heard or read a single parent who has a child at school/uni in the affected area express a wish to have an old school Chris Whitty press conference. Yet the OP, who by their own admission doesn't have a child involved does want that 🤔.

Was the reassurance from the UKHSA deputy director not enough? Why not? Because she’s an Asian female? Are the news reports outlining exactly what they’re doing not enough? Do you think we need to have COBRA meetings for a very local outbreak of something that won’t affect the vast vast vast majority of the UK? Why?

i am one of Chris whittys biggest fans. I really am. But this isn’t a whitty outbreak yet (and unlikely to become)
public health are more than capable of dealing with this - and would have been (with more support) for Covid, yet got sidelined for private companies.

By their own admission this isn’t a court of law, Alpaca.
No, no child at university in Kent but a young grandchild in south London and as another 6 cases have just been announced I am concerned.

Covid spread differently to MenB, impossible to contain.

I got a mug saying " Next Slide, Please " with his picture....We were at uni with him in Oxford in the late 80s/early 90s. He is a very dignified, reliable, quiet and lovely person, formidable bright!

I’m aware of that, public health are trained to deal with outbreaks of any sort of virus, bacteria, food poisoning etc. They have track and trace in place, can work multi agency and across different counties. Would have been perfectly placed for Covid, as they are perfectly equipped to deal with this outbreak.

O....k. As the OP said themselves they don't have a child at uni in Kent. Hope you find that wording less offensive.

I completely understand being concerned by I still don't understand what you expect CW to do/say that isn't already being done/said. And will.only freak people out as it brings back the 2020 vibes.

The only thing he could do is say that local experts are managing the cases, antibiotics and vaccines are being offered but we know that already, tocks are ru ning low so maybe that is already being addressed. Lets hope pharmaceutical companies dont jump on the bandwagon for profit and CW doesnt get abused in the street again. The vacinne isn't just for students, there is a list of those eligible.

The desperation to bring back the Covid era feel is a bit much. They have already told people, this is different, it won’t overwhelm the NHS. It does not spread as much. They just need young people and their parents to understand the symptoms, seek antibiotics and not panic!

The sun is shining - it is March, hottest day of the year yesterday. Some people are having too much Covid nostalgia!!! It is literally 6 years ago.

Of course not. It spread far too quickly. And was asymptomatic for too high a number.

From what I can gather the government response to this, whilst rather slow, is in line with what is expected and required. Luckily the way this disease is spread is nothing like Covid.

Bexsero is made by Novartis, Basel, Switzerland as far as I understand it. 2 dose schedule for teens, ideally 6 months apart to get max long term effect.
It is widely available in France, Switzerland etc in pharmacies for cheaper than here. The UK Government can surely purchase directly if they need to. No outbreaks in those countries. In fact, put on notice by France I thought originally.
Fact is, we should have vaccinated our teens. They know this. There has been campaigning for years around this and the student loans so some of the panic is driven by campaigns/media etc.

It is different to what has happened before. A couple of students died at a Cardiff University a few years ago and nothing like this happened. They just put notices around the campus and that was it.

We are far more of a “student halls” country than other European ones so our risk to Men B is greater. We also have boarding schools - another risky place I would have thought.

Meningitis B: what are the symptoms, how is it spread and is there a vaccine?
Read more
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) sought to reassure the public that the outbreak – which has been closely linked to those attending the Club Chemistry nightclub in Canterbury on 5, 6 and 7 March – has not spread beyond Kent.

“We have no evidence of any wider spread,” Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam said. There was no risk to anyone outside Kent, she stressed.
The UKHSA is overseeing an intensive campaign of contact tracing to identify who the 15 confirmed casualties of the outbreak were in touch with.
It emerged on Tuesday that one of the 15 people was a University of Kent student who travelled to London, fell ill there and sought help at a hospital in the capital on Sunday or Monday.
The seriousness of the outbreak, which experts are calling a “super-spreader” event, meant the UKHSA had been treating the Kent outbreak as a national rather than local incident from when it began at the end of last week

So it’s ‘not spread beyond Kent’, but it’s a ‘super-spreader’ which UKHSA is treating as a national incident.

What has Dr Amirthalingam‘s ethnicity got to do with this?

Why do you think it’s a fragmented response?

what do you mean by “a plan led centrally”?
how would that look different to what’s happening now?

So you’re aware of what she’s said. But still you want CW? I just wondered why you want the white male to say something when the Asian female already has.

So it’s ‘not spread beyond Kent’, but it’s a ‘super-spreader’ which UKHSA is treating as a national incident.

It's a superspreader in terms of the number of people infected at one time and place. The reasons for this are not yet understood.

So far there have been no cases which can't be linked to the initial event but they are keeping a lookout for possible secondary infections.

It's being treated as a national incident in terms of making resources available.

This has been clearly explained on the BBC website and presumably elsewhere. What is so difficult to understand?

I can’t tell if you’re serious at all, but on the off chance: we are benefiting from his expertise, he’s the CMO. That means we’re benefiting from it even when disease outbreaks aren’t in the news. We’re also benefiting from the expertise of many other highly qualified and experienced public health officials who you can’t name.

Anyone stressing over this, I highly recommend putting your phone away, getting out and enjoying the sunshine. Life is short to be worrying all the time.

I agree he was so calming in a scary time. And I trusted what he said. I want to know whether to pay to get my whole family vaccinated or whether im overreacting as we live nowhere near Kent and dont have kids at uni

You found Chris Whitty reassuring but I suspect that if he appeared on TV (especially at the start of March!) there would be mass panic that there had been a cover-up of the real state until now and another out-of-control epidemic was starting.

There is no need to panic. You would know there was a real problem if the French closed the Eurotunnel/put in restrictions as it borders Kent. Although I still think some of the last minute Covid closures there were partly political and Brexit related! That is the French for you. This time we are all nicely working together because of Iran and the Europeans and Swiss would help out, so panic station over! Remember the media are here to sell a story and rile people up.