Osler Lecture, Mathematical Institute, Oxford September 23, 2023
Well, I was excited to be able to attend a lecture last year at the Meeting Minds Conference in Oxford starring the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, last seen standing behind a podium on TV screens all over the land pretty much on a daily basis during the recent pandemic.
Sir Professor Chris Whitty stands at yet another podium – The slideshow was seamless
I usually delete emails about events such as this without much scrutiny from my overcrowded inbox. Even though I studied Modern History at Oxford, it bored me rigid, and I have never had the least desire to go back for even more stultifyingly academic lectures. (Victorian hairpin design? The changing nature of the Privy Council in the reign of James I? Anyone? No?) However, Chris Whitty’s name caught my eye, and on closer inspection of the programme I realised that the medical and scientific lectures really looked quite interesting. So off I headed to that cramped but magical city – hello again to hordes of tourists trooping on and off buses, giant trees, stone walls, medieval gargoyles and musty corridors lined with seemingly endless portraits of Edwardian vicars.
Sir Chris Whitty, Professor and Chief Medical Officer, was delivering the Osler lecture (the ‘o’ is pronounced as in ‘nose’) on the varying responsibilities of the state, the health service and the individual on people’s health – very topical, as indeed was Lord Patten’s discussion on the Power of Free Speech (which I sadly missed through not even noticing it in the brochure till it was too late.) However, as you are probably reading this only to hear his thoughts on Long covid, I’ll jump to the chase and present it now. The main talk will have to wait for another time..
Long covid
Long covid was mentioned in the Q and A section following the main talk. Now, this was an easy crowd. The audience showed a great deal of approval and admiration for Professor Whitty, and I think this was the only question with any sort of edge at all, and that edge was something along the lines of “why isn’t more being done about long covid. There are so many people suffering and nothing’s being done”. Well, straight from the horse’s mouth, we learnt that
- we don’t know much about long covid (and if Professor Whitty doesn’t know much about it, I guess nobody does)
- they didn’t predict the occurrence of long covid, and if they had, they would have done things differently ( * these things were not specified * )
- Sir/Prof Whitty thinks there are at least four different syndromes that fall under the term “long covid”
- vaccinated people are less likely to get long covid than unvaccinated people i.e. vaccination reduces the conversion rate from primary covid to the post-infectious syndrome generally known as long covid (references not supplied but I assume there are studies out there)
- the UK and USA are doing research into long covid, but not many other nations are doing this
- there is an autoimmune dysfunction in long covid which is not seen in other post infectious conditions
- there seems to be some occurrence of POTS in Long covid. Initially I thought he was talking about Pott’s disease, aka tuberculous spondylitis, but actually he was talking about Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which tallies with his autoimmune reference. Basically, when you stand or sit up, your heart races, and you get other unpleasant symptoms such as fatigue, sweating, dizziness, lightheadedness and nausea – most debilitating, and somewhat similar to some ME/Chronic Fatigue symptoms.
So, apologies if you were expecting more answers, but there we are. Long covid understanding still seems to be at the drawing board stage.
Thanks for reading
