With hindsight, it was clear that something was wrong in Canterbury at least a couple of days before the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) notified the public of a meningitis outbreak. Walking through the city centre on Friday evening, I noticed the pubs and restaurants that would normally be teeming with students were standing largely empty. Far from its usual raucousness, Canterbury High Street was eerily quiet.
It was 48 hours later that news broke of the tragic deaths of a pupil from a nearby school and a student at the University of Kent, from what has now been identified as meningitis B. Fifteen people remain severely ill in hospital. This is an incredibly difficult time for those mourning the loss of a relative or friend, worried about those still unwell, or concerned that they are at risk of infection.
Meningitis needs to be treated with the utmost seriousness. Amid concern that the UKHSA was too slow in alerting the public, health officials spent yesterday tracing those who may have come into contact with the disease and issuing precautionary antibiotics to those at risk. This was a sensible response to a worrying situation.
But elsewhere, the response to Canterbury’s meningitis outbreak has been far from rational. ‘TERROR ON CAMPUS’ screams the headline in today’s Daily Mirror. ‘Killer meningitis outbreak’, warns Channel 4 News. Images have been published of paramedics in hazmat suits wheeling a sick student out of university accommodation and into the back of a waiting ambulance – even though this is absolutely not happening routinely.
As I walked through the University of Kent’s grounds yesterday, it wasn’t petrified students I noticed, but journalists intent on whipping up hysteria. National camera crews had assembled at dawn, and by midday, helicopters were circling my house, capturing aerial footage of students queuing for antibiotics. Yet reporters, vox-popping teenagers and seemingly desperate for hysteria, were, at least at first, often met with boredom and resignation. It was only as the day wore on that ‘fear and panic’ began to be recorded.
Some journalists seem to go beyond describing what’s happening in Canterbury in their bid to summon a medical emergency, with the media at the centre of the action. This can have dangerous and unintended consequences. For example, reports suggest that some scared students have now returned to their family homes, when they may have been far better off staying put to avoid spreading the infection. Indeed, the first case outside of Kent was recorded in London earlier today, leading health officials to declare the outbreak a ‘national incident’. French officials have also reported a case involving a Kent University student.
‘Students queue in “Covid-esque” scenes’, claimed the Independent, turning to a comparison being drawn in much of meningitis reporting. Indeed, it soon became apparent that it wasn’t just journalists drawing Covid parallels. ‘Lockdown’ now provides the script for responding to serious illness. In Canterbury this week, people have all too readily returned to once-familiar routines with university exams moved online, masked-up students queuing for medication, and pubs falling silent.
What’s troubling is not just the readiness with which people retreat from social life, but that Covid comparisons fail to take into account the specific nature of meningitis and the way it is transmitted. Unlike Covid, meningitis B spreads through close and direct contact with an infected person through kissing, sneezing, and sharing drinks or cutlery. It is, thankfully, far less contagious than Covid – although this is not obvious from much of the reporting.
The ease with which lockdown routines are being revived means that students queuing for antibiotics at the University of Kent are being given masks, which likely serve little purpose, only to be spotted sharing vapes, which is far riskier than simply lining up outside in the fresh air.
Another unhelpful hangover from the Covid years is the way disease becomes incorporated into the culture war. Within minutes of footage of students queuing beginning to circulate, vaccinations became a topic of discussion once more. On one side, students were condemned for not having been vaccinated against meningitis, while others pointed out that repeated lockdowns and school closures meant that entire cohorts of teenagers missed out on routine vaccinations that would normally have been administered during the school day. Some note that vaccines are less effective against meningitis B, the particular strain thought to be spreading in Canterbury, while others argue that only a lack of NHS funding prevents this specific vaccine from being issued more widely.
Right now, Kent’s meningitis outbreak has led to the tragic loss of two young lives. There is a worrying wait for news of those who are still gravely ill. But we cannot afford to let a more generalised media hysteria, or a desire to replay an old Covid script, make this serious situation far worse than it already is.
