I hadn’t really realized how profound an impact Covid-19 has had on us as a nation. I lived through the pandemic, of course, but it didn’t change me. It taught me two lessons: how much I value my family and friends and how much I need their physical presence; and how lucky I am. While life was far from normal for my eldest daughter, she was still allowed to go to daycare; she played with the other children. We had our house and some space outside. My husband and I both worked all that time; I continued to travel to London to work at the BBC. In the years since, I’ve tried my best to forget those strange years.
But the response to the meningitis outbreak in Kent has brought home how those two years changed society. This was not only the first major test of public health communication and response since Covid, but also an illustration of how the public understands risk in a post-pandemic Britain. Fear of the Covid era still shapes the collective response to even relatively rare diseases. We are “on the brink” on a national scale.
As news of the blast spread, television screens were plastered with photos of masked students. Many did not want to go to school or university, too scared to leave their bedrooms. Some placed themselves in self-imposed social isolation, although there was no official requirement for them to do so, no strict medical necessity for most. Theirs is a fearful generation.
Meningitis B – the type of disease identified in Canterbury – is dangerous. It is estimated that one in ten who contract it will die. Unlike Covid, young people are at greater risk. Therefore, the fear is understandable. But this disease is not Covid. It is much less sticky; transmission requires close and prolonged contact. While this outbreak has surprised public health experts with both the speed of transmission and the numbers infected, in general, meningitis is well understood.
Subscribe to the New Statesman today and save 75%
What has felt so similar to the pandemic is not the disease itself, but the reaction to it: the panic, the speculation, the rapid spread of misinformation on social media, the need to assign blame. When the Kent outbreak is contained and over, it will perhaps appear that the UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) could have done differently. But the initial view from many in public health is that he responded well.
“What critics don’t understand is the time it takes to realize you have a group,” Robert Dingwall, emeritus professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University, told me. Dingwall advised the government during Covid and sat on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI). It takes time for a pattern to emerge, he explained. Patients present separately to healthcare facilities – one may go to the GP, the other to A&E. In this case, one saw doctors in another country.
For those who were at the heart of the UK’s Covid response, it is clear that we are still seeing its echoes. According to Lucy Easthope, an emergency planning adviser for the government and UKHSA, public fear is higher and confidence lower than it was before the pandemic. This is not without reason. But this makes the work of those dealing with major health events extremely difficult. Unreasonable expectations are placed on them. And, Dingwall argues, there is a mistaken belief that medicine can eliminate all risk.
Small clusters of meningitis with two or three cases are not uncommon in the student population. Universities conduct exercises on how they would respond to a worst-case scenario where there are dozens of deaths. Since the late 1990s, annual cases have fallen from more than 2,500 to around 350 in the UK, largely thanks to vaccines. It is a great medical success story. But there are still between 30 and 40 deaths on average per year. When the Canterbury outbreak is over, there will be other, sporadic cases of MenB – because there always are.
The challenge is not only medical. It’s communicative: how to convey seriousness without unnecessarily scaring people; how to talk about risks that are serious but rare. “What we keep forgetting is how different the world of 2026 is,” Easthope said.
This is perhaps best illustrated in the MenB vaccine debate. First introduced in 2015, it is routinely given only to infants – not teenagers or young adults, despite their high-risk profile. Independent scientific experts at JCVI concluded that a wider scope would not be cost-effective. The vaccine for MenB differs from other vaccines that treat different strains: it is less effective; it does not prevent transmission (but does help make individuals severely ill), and protection appears to wane after a few years.
Decisions based on cost-benefit analysis are a standard feature of health care policy. Before the pandemic they were “non-controversial”, argued Easthope. Resources are finite and funding one intervention often means diverting money from another. The JCVI will now review its guidance in light of the Kent outbreak, but it is very possible that its advice will remain the same.
When illness causes the death of a loved one, such calculations can seem abstract, trivial, even offensive. But the tension between individual suffering and population-level decision-making is inevitable. Government, and those who advise it, must weigh the benefits to society as a whole, even when the consequences are personal. No amount of planning or medicine can prevent every tragedy. When Covid hit, no one could have predicted so many deaths, such disruption. But we must remember that meningitis is not Covid. We cannot let fear stop us from living.
(Further reading: Liz Truss is planning her comeback)
Content from our partners
