Chris Whitty... Everything will be ok!

[Mumlove5]

I agree that CW has a fantastic delivery ,not patronising etc .

When I see him I can't get it out of my head that he's only 54 .And that his father ( a diplomat) was murdered by terrorists when Whitty was 18 .

Wonderful man.

So calm and reassuring. I really like him

Is everything he said then still correct?

I do think everyone has been whipped into a state of hysteria and feel that it's certain death if you get it.

I do tend to trust him, I like him.

Off topic but what is that dreadful logo at the bottom of the screen? Is it a cockroach? Who chose that?

When was this released? If it’s a while ago, new research and subsequent high figures seem to negate it? Or is it recent?

Love this man, and really needed to hear this so thank you

I think he's average and I trust him as much as any government official.

His reassuring but matter of fact tone is missing from the no. 10 briefings.

I've always liked Chris Whitty. He seems balanced and sensible in what he says.

I also like Dr Jenny Harries and Jonathan Van-Tam.

The clip is reassuring, far more than most things I see/hear.

That's interesting that people could have it with no symptoms. My husband is convinced he had it in March, the week before lockdown. He didn't have a fever or cough, but was lethergic, achy muscles for around 8 days and has lost his sense of taste. We all self isolated just in case, but neither DD nor I got ill at all and we were sharing spaces (house too small to do otherwise).

PerkingFaintly he says near the start (and on the slide) a ‘high proportion of people won’t get it’

Perhaps this lack of concern from the chief medical officer explains why we have the highest death rate in Europe.

It’s not a lack of concern. It’s putting things in proportion so the hysterical ones don’t get carried away and end up being the only voice heard. Balance.

baroqueandblue,
Namenic
"From what he said, doesn’t it make more sense to wait until absolute number of cases is lower before lifting restrictions?"

I totally agree. Whitty is being rolled out to follow the rhetoric of the government, but it contradicts what he says in his longer lectures. There's been times he's had to be circumspect in his answers around Boris, but then says something different outside of the press conferences.

Why isn't he being used to get transport up and running? Why are bus drivers at risk, but we aren't when packing on the bus and having to stand/sit next to each other? I like his honest answer that tjete may not be a solution for the over 70's. But many people are having to work over 70 to supplement their pension etc. Those questions draw a blank.

At times he's been a nodding dog. He won't answer if we should have locked down earlier. He won't answer why NHS protocols were changed for the rest of us, while the only government advice was to wash our hands and many other questions. I find JVT a lot straighter tbh.

I love Chris, always found him extremely intelligent and trustworthy. Very reassuring too. I also really like Jonathan van tam. They’re the best guys for the job!

@LilacTree1

“I would think a lot more of him if he would step back from government and use his platform to say “people, I think you’ve been played.”

I know. I have a feeling he had to go along with the grave choices the government/Boris made.
The Imperial College highly inaccurate prediction threw them off the original plan. The panic and hysteria within the public was too strong, obviously from the fear-mongering main stream media.

Oh I see the bit you mean, bumblenbean.

Giving this in context (slightly more than the clip in the OP):

"COVID-19 has around a 1% mortality, case fatality rate is a bit higher than that, that's people who've actually got symptoms, but it has very high transmissibility and if you multiply a very small chance of dying by a very large number of people, you can still have a very big impact on society.

Now, at an individual level, the chance of anybody watching this dying of coronavirus are actually low. Over the whole epidemic, even if we have no vaccine, a high proportion of people will not get this. Of those who do get it, a significant proportion, exact number is not yet clear but it's certainly a significant proportion, have no symptoms at all - they get it without even realizing it. Of those who do get symptoms, the great majority, probably around 80%, depends on a number of factors we’ll go on to, have a mild or moderate disease, which is sufficient that they would want to go to bed and feel unwell in some cases. Some people can actually just carry on doing their ordinary activities, although we ask them not to, but they don't actually need to go to the doctor or medical services and they make a full recovery. A minority have to go to hospital, but most of these actually the principal thing they need is oxygen and the great majority of those will go on just to survive. And then a minority have very severe disease, may need ventilation, and of those, some sadly die with current treatment. But important to stress, even in the most high risk group, the majority of people who actually get this infection do not die."

Yep I trust him, he’s great.

I honestly do believe he would have resigned if he didn’t agree with what has been proposed.

“ I honestly do believe he would have resigned if he didn’t agree with what has been proposed.”

Yes. Which means he’s happy to conduct a really damaging experiment on us all. So that makes him the same as all the others.

I've just watched the whole lecture (had to rewind a few bits to understand better as very detailed) and feel better informed but I'm not getting the 'everything will be ok!' message. Maybe sometime in the future when tests and treatments have evolved and a vaccine is available, but certainly not for a while, and I can't see how him talking to teachers can reassure them, given how much is unknown. 'Encouraging' some people back to work (mainly lower paid workers) still seems very dangerous to me, the main message being in @PerkingFaintly's quote above "if you multiply a very small chance of dying by a very large number of people, you can still have a very big impact on society."

I also don't see his lack of concern - he's laying out the facts as they appeared at that time, he says several times that scientific understanding of the disease is at a very early stage.

It's really interesting that this short snippet of a freely available full lecture is being used to twist what he actually says by the Save Our Rights UK lot. People are just too lazy to look beyond convenient soundbites that support what they want to believe anyway.

I think he is trying to reassure people about the risk they face to their individual health as working age adults. See hysteria from some teachers/some re restarting school.

I think he also understands it is kind of serious for society though too!

@Floatyboat I can't see how what he says will reassure teachers/others that restarting school won't increase the number of cases though?

I don't think he's trying to do anything except present the facts. Some will be reassured that most people who get it will have mild or no symptoms but the bigger picture isn't just 'what about me?'

And he also said it the night Boris started lifting restrictions, so yes it is still relevant. I guess the dementors ignored that part.