New Zealand Covid response among world’s best but ‘scars’ remain, inquiry finds | New Zealand

A royal commission examining New Zealand’s response to Covid found it was among the best in the world but admitted the period had left “scars”.

The second of two investigative reports on the epidemic was released on Tuesday and focused on the period between February 2021 and October 2022, when the government shifted from a strategy of eliminating the virus to a strategy of suppressing and minimizing it. He also examined vaccine safety and the government’s vaccination program, quarantines and tracking and testing technology.

The royal commission was established in 2022 by the Labor-led government of Jacinda Ardern, which has been in power during the pandemic.

New Zealand has recorded 5,641 Covid deaths since 2020. The country’s strict response, which included lockdowns, vaccination mandates and border quarantines, helped save tens of thousands of lives. But as the pandemic progressed, there was some anger at the restrictions imposed, and a small but vocal group of anti-vaccine and anti-mandate groups emerged, leading to a violent protest on the parliament lawns.

The first phase of the inquiry, published in late 2024, found New Zealand had one of the lowest Covid death rates per capita among developed countries. While he largely accepted vaccine mandates, he also acknowledged they caused distress and economic harm to some New Zealanders.

In the report published on Tuesday, the commission said New Zealand had responded well to the outbreak and that the decisions and methods used in the response were “considered and appropriate”, but also identified where the response was “lacking”.

“New Zealand’s response strategy and environments were not always sensitive enough to changing conditions; for example, they could not adapt early enough to deal with later variants of the virus,” he said.

“At a time when speed was often critical, some decisions had to be made without sufficient information and data, without adequate consideration of any impacts that might arise, or without significant controls and monitoring.”

The commission said it had heard from many people who expressed pain and anger about the impact of the outbreak and the response, and that there were lessons to be learned from their experiences.

“The pandemic and the response to it have left scars,” he said.

“People continued to die and others suffered long-term health problems during the period studied at this stage. Some lost all faith in the government and other institutions and today are apathetic, suspicious or even hostile towards them.”

He said ministers and officials faced a complex and risky situation and were “doing the best they could”, adding that evidence showed New Zealand had “one of the best pandemic responses in the world”.

But he noted that while restrictions such as vaccine mandates are a valid tool for pandemic response, they need to be “treated with great caution.”

The report said its aim was “not to apportion blame, but to ensure New Zealand is better informed ahead of the next outbreak”, before listing 24 recommendations.

The commission found that the elimination strategy was difficult to exit and that failure to update the strategy in a timely manner meant that the response to many people was “overly centralized and risk-averse”. He suggested leaders should present elimination strategies as “ad hoc from the start” to help manage public expectations.

The commission said concerns raised about vaccine hesitancy were “not based on reliable evidence or in line with scientific consensus”. He suggested that governments should continue to be guided by the best scientific evidence and that an agency should be tasked with monitoring trust and social cohesion.

While Health Minister Simeon Brown supported New Zealanders’ initial Covid response in 2020, he said restrictions lasted longer than necessary and economic costs were not given enough weight.

“New Zealanders have made enormous sacrifices and placed enormous trust in their government. We owe it to them to understand what happened and learn from it.”

According to RNZ, Ardern and former deputy prime minister Grant Robertson said in a joint statement that they accepted the commission’s findings and recommendations.

“We are right about a lot of things. More than most. But there are areas where we could be better,” they said.

Labor leader Chris Hipkins said the country must now strengthen its institutions, public trust and processes to face a future pandemic.

“Over the last two years the government has cut public health capacity while commissioning multiple inspections that replicated the same results,” Hipkins said.

“National now needs to answer a simple question: Are we better prepared for the next pandemic today than we were in 2020?”