Photo: 123rf.com / Composite Image - RNZ
The Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 response has been publicly released.
The report from the first phase of the inquiry, which looked at lockdowns, the border response, MIQ, and vaccine mandates, has been handed to internal affairs minister Brooke van Velden.
You can read the full report here.
With the full report totalling 713 pages, distilling more than 133,000 pages of evidence including from 1600 people, and from nearly 400 meetings across the country, a summary report was also provided.
It makes 39 recommendations.
Some of the biggest lessons included:
- To look at all aspects of people's lives, not just health
- Plan for multiple periods of time
- More explicitly use ethical frameworks to balance rights over time
- Follow robust decision-making processes to the extent possible
- Anticipate and plan for burnout
- Be clear about intentions and transparent about tradeoffs
- Build public health capacity to increase the options available to decision-makers
- Make scalable testing and contact tracing part of the core public health capability
- Plan for a flexible range of quarantine and isolation options
- Prepare better for economic shocks, strengthen fiscal reserves and maintain fiscal discipline
- Use economic and social support to keep 'normal' life going as much as possible
- Ensure continuous supply of key goods and services including through supply chains, food security, government and community services, and allow the "essential" category to change over time
- Work in partnership with Māori and other communities, making use of national approach and local intiatives, and work closely with the business sector
- Have key components of an effective national response in place and ready for activation
This first phase of the inquiry, set up by the previous Labour government, had sought lessons from the Covid-19 response between February 2020 and October 2022. It aimed to look at the public health response, the provision of goods and services, the economic response and the government's decision-making, communication and engagement, legal and policy settings, and the impact on Māori.
The report highlighted how the early use of lockdowns and other restrictions helped prevent widespread infection, and meant New Zealand had far fewer Covid-19 cases than most other countries over the first two years, protecting vulnerable people including the immunocompromised.
Vaccination was fundamental to the response, the report said, and the procurement process was appropriate and effective, although some chances to reach vulnerable groups were missed. Vaccine hesitancy was a problem, fed by mis- and disinformation.
"All vaccines have the potential to cause harm to a small number of individuals. While Medsafe and the Ministry of Health sought to keep people up to date with emerging evidence of rare complications, the Inquiry understands there is potential to strengthen the communication of risk at the time people are vaccinated."
"Aotearoa New Zealand also had one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 deaths per head of the population when compared to other OECD countries."
Peak hospitalisation rates were about half that of the UK and the US, and New Zealand was an outlier in having very few Covid-19 related deaths in residential aged care.
However, the government was not well prepared, and despite "pockets of pandemic preparedness", the all-of-government readiness "proved insufficient for an event of the scale, impact and duration" experienced. While the strict public health and infection controls were effective, it "came at significant human cost", with people in care, hospitals, sick or dying remaining isolated.
"The Inquiry has not seen evidence that waning protection from vaccination was included in modelling to inform decisions around when to end lockdowns in late 2021, although it was used in modelling from early 2022 ... in a future pandemic we think these considerations should also be included in advice to decision-makers."
The report hailed the alert level system as a "world-leading and innovative communication and policy tool" that proved highly effective. However, some shortcomings emerged which were "not adequately addressed". This included non-health matters taking a back seat, a lack of long-term planning, and delays in exiting the elimination strategy which was "not well signalled or communicated ahead of time".
After an initial fall, the economic response saw a faster and stronger GDP recovery than many other countries, with the economy outpacing pre-pandemic GDP from the third quarter of 2020 to the end of 2022. Lockdowns proved effective in 2020 and early 2021, but stronger public health systems could have prevented some of the need for them.
"At the time, the generous economic response seemed appropriate and was widely supported. But because of the amount of Government spending it required over an extended period, the economic response left a long shadow on the economy."
The education sector was heavily impacted, but students in New Zealand missed fewer days of school and faced less disruption than many other OECD countries. Māori and Pacific students, those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and those in Auckland suffered more than others. Auckland's repeated lockdowns had a "cumulative and multifaceted" effect on the economy, physical and mental health, education, and social cohesion.
"Efforts by iwi, Māori and communities of all kinds undoubtedly alleviated some potential negative impacts of lockdowns on individuals and groups."
The country was not prepared for the border closures and MIQ, and while setting up both quickly was "a huge achievement, both systems had significant shortcomings".
"In a future pandemic, having a larger and more flexible range of quarantine and isolation options ready to activate could create more opportunities."
Communications generally were initially "highly effective" but became "more challenging" over time, which could have been helped by more community-level engagement.
Compulsory mandates were one of the most controversial measures, but some targeted vaccine requirements was reasonable based on the information at the time and were in some cases applied more broadly than envisaged. The case for them grew weaker after the arrival of Omicron variant.
The use of these mandatory measures affected trust and could make future pandemic responses more difficult.
Testing, contact tracing, and masking requirements were reasonable but could be improved.
Van Velden said the second phase will begin on Friday, covering vaccine mandates and safety as well as social and economic disruption. She said she strongly encouraged people to participate and have their say.
The Royal Commission confirmed no draft of the report was provided to the minister ahead of Thursday afternoon's release.
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