How Covid fear shaped the meningitis response
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Earlier this month, a meningitis outbreak in Canterbury, Kent, led to the tragic death of two young people. So far there have been 29 confirmed or suspected cases in total. It’s thought that a “super-spreader” event at a nightclub is the source of the outbreak.
Since then, there has been a mass rollout of vaccines for Meningitis B and preventative antibiotics. Thousands of students and contacts have been treated.
Cases now appear to be slowing or stabilising, however, some questions have been raised over the speed of the response from the government.
Post-Covid, fear amongst the public of the spread of infectious diseases is heightened. This meningitis outbreak has served as a test, not just of public health response and communication, but of how the public understands risk in a post-pandemic Britain.
Anoosh Chakelian is joined by investigations editor, Hannah Barnes.
READ: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2026/03/was-kent-prepared-for-meningitis
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman |
| 0:02.0 | Earlier this month, a meningitis outbreak in Canterbury, Kent, led to the tragic death of two young people. |
| 0:12.0 | So far, there have been 29 confirmed or suspected cases in total. |
| 0:16.0 | It's thought that a super spreader event at a nightclub is the source of the outbreak. |
| 0:20.0 | Since then, there's been a mass rollout of vaccines for meningitis B and preventative. that a super spreader event at a nightclub is the source of the outbreak. |
| 0:26.0 | Since then, there's been a mass rollout of vaccines for meningitis B and preventative antibiotics. |
| 0:29.0 | Thousands of students and contacts have been treated. |
| 0:32.5 | Cases now appear to be slowing or stabilising. |
| 0:36.5 | However, some questions have been raised over the speed of the response from the government. |
| 0:41.8 | Post-COVID, fear among the public of the spread of infectious diseases is heightened. |
| 0:48.1 | This meningitis outbreak has served as a test, not just of public health responses and communication, |
| 0:51.6 | but of how the public understands risk in a post-pandemic Britain. |
| 1:12.4 | I'm Anoushekelian and you're listening to Daily Politics from the New Statesman. Joining me today is our investigations editor, Hannah Barnes. Hi, Hannah. Hi, Anish. You've been looking into this for the past week. Can you just bring us up to date on where the story is so far? So it all sort of crept into the national lens, if you like, on Sunday evening. So just over a week ago, eight days ago, where the UK health security agency issued a public health |
| 1:20.3 | alert saying that, as you've just mentioned, very sadly, two young people had died and there |
| 1:25.6 | appeared to be a meningitis outbreak in Kent. |
| 1:29.8 | And at that time, all we knew was that one of those deaths was a student at the University |
| 1:35.0 | of Kent and another was a Year 13 school pupil. But actually, the UK HSA had been acting |
| 1:43.5 | before that. |
| 1:44.3 | That's just when the wider public news. |
| 1:45.9 | So they first heard that there was a case of someone diagnosed with meningitis on the Friday. |
| 1:53.0 | So this was, let's think about it, 13th of March. |
| 1:56.1 | They then hear on the Saturday from authorities in France that there's another case and this is also linked with the University of Kent. |
... |
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