1.4 The pandemic context: when strategy met virus Te horopaki o te mate urutā: i te wā i tūtaki ai te rautaki ki te huaketo
1.4 The pandemic context: when strategy met virus | Te horopaki o te mate urutā: i te
wā i tūtaki ai te rautaki ki te huaketo
The decisions assessed in this report were made in, and shaped by, a highly volatile and uncertain environment, both locally and internationally. The pandemic situation facing decision-makers in February 2021 (the start of the period under review) was already very different from the situation they had faced in early 2020. And by the last quarter of 2022, the social, economic and political landscape had changed in ways that many New Zealanders could not have imagined possible.
The evolution of the pandemic and the response over those 21 months is another vital contextual element to be considered when assessing key decisions. The following section briefly summarises how COVID-19 unfolded during that time, and how government strategy developed in response.
Back in March 2020, as COVID-19 swept the world, Government's immediate goal was unambiguous: to protect the population from an unknown, potentially catastrophic virus for which there was no vaccine or effective treatment. Initially, to decision-makers, it seemed the best option was to delay COVID-19's arrival and stamp out any outbreaks for as long as possible.101 On 23 March 2020, with more than 100 COVID-19 local cases confirmed, a more ambitious goal was announced: eliminating the virus until vaccines became available.102 Rigorous public health and social measures followed – an initial seven-week national lockdown, the effective closure of international borders, a nationwide contact-tracing regime and more.
This 'go hard' approach immediately proved successful in limiting infection and transmission, safeguarding the healthcare system and preventing deaths.103 The health response went hand-in-hand with an immediate and generous economic and social package that sought to soften COVID-19's broader impacts. By the end of March 2020, $12.1 billion had been allocated to business continuity initiatives, including the Wage Subsidy Scheme.104 The 2020 Budget also allocated $2.9 billion to pandemic-related social spending.105
This boost to services and support provided a safety net for communities and individuals – including those already disadvantaged before the pandemic, who would almost certainly be disproportionately impacted by it. The economic and social response supported the elimination strategy by ensuring people's basic needs were met. The availability of financial support made it easier for people to comply with health measures (including staying at home), thereby helping to minimise infection and transmission.106 However, the financial support measures ultimately cost billions of dollars, contributing to domestic inflation.
By late July 2020, COVID-19 had been technically eliminated, with no community-based transmission for 80 days. This milestone was short-lived, however. In August 2020, a community outbreak forced Auckland back into lockdown for nearly three weeks. The same happened again in February 2021.107 But by then, the first COVID-19 vaccines had reached New Zealand and were being rolled out, first to frontline workers and then (from late July) to the general public. This signalled the start of what many believed would be an easing of pandemic restrictions and – in time – a return to normal life.
In August 2021, the virulent Delta variant arrived. Concerned about an uncontrollable outbreak and with more than 80 percent of the total population still unvaccinated108 (including some highly vulnerable groups, particularly Māori and Pacific peoples), Government imposed a series of national and regional lockdowns of varying lengths. Auckland and neighbouring regions bore the brunt, with Auckland ultimately spending more than 15 weeks locked down in the second half of 2021. Government had earlier indicated that restrictions could be loosened once 90 percent of eligible people were vaccinated. But with vaccination uptake still well short of that target in some areas, such as South Auckland, lockdowns continued.
As COVID-19 case numbers climbed, the elimination strategy that had served the country well in the pandemic's early months began to look increasingly unsustainable.109 As Delta infections spread, the prospect of eliminating the virus – even with the vaccine rollout gathering momentum – became less likely. Alternative strategies to elimination began to be considered in September 2021. The fact that they had not been well-explored earlier meant the transition to another phase of the response would be far from smooth. The transition was also complicated by the growing realisation that vaccination alone would not be enough to contain the virus. Concerning evidence from countries with similar response approaches and higher vaccination levels (such as Australia and Singapore) indicated that public health measures would still be needed in some form even after New Zealand moved on from the elimination approach.
By the end of 2021, the number of recorded cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand had reached 9.2 per million people, up from 0.9 at the end of 2020.110 By this time (and before the 90 percent national vaccination target was reached),111 the elimination strategy had been finally set aside. On 2 December 2021, New Zealand moved to a suppression and minimisation approach, supported by the COVID-19 Protection Framework (which replaced the former Alert Level System).
Under this new approach, there would be no more lockdowns. People who could prove they were vaccinated would have greater freedoms than the unvaccinated. For example, vaccinated people were not required to wear masks when risk levels were at their lowest.112 Workplace and occupational vaccination mandates were progressively introduced, eventually affecting around one million workers.
From this point until the pandemic was 'over', the response acknowledged that some level of community transmission was inevitable while aiming to minimise the harms and protect the vulnerable. Once the highly transmissible (but less severe) Omicron strain reached New Zealand in January 2022, cases skyrocketed.113 Thousands of new infections were recorded every day.114 By the end of our inquiry period (31 October 2022), New Zealand had more than 1,000 cases per million people.115
The national mood became increasingly weary and fractious throughout 2021. In early 2022, as many as 3,000 people occupied Parliament grounds to protest the ongoing use of mandatory measures and what they saw as an erosion of fundamental rights. The 23-day occupation ended in violence on 2 March.116
Alongside social division, New Zealand experienced a range of longer-term economic impacts, some of which began to emerge over the period we examined. Consumer price inflation began to accelerate in 2021, reaching rates in 2022 not seen since the late 1980s. House prices increased by one-third between the middle of 2020 and the end of 2021. Net government debt almost doubled as a share of Gross Domestic Product between 2019 and 2022.117
As this brief narrative shows, and the following chapters make plain, the fluid and unpredictable course of the pandemic during 2021 and 2022 made for a uniquely challenging decision-making environment. The challenges were compounded by events beyond New Zealand – from the outbreak of war in Ukraine to rapid advances in vaccine technology to the growing global tide of misinformation and disinformation. Such developments created new risks and possibilities that also needed to be factored into key decisions taken during the COVID-19 response.
101 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 9.2.1, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/9-2-the-story-of-the-response
102 Under this strategy, elimination meant eliminating infection from within the population whenever it occurred and preventing new cases of infection from entering the country. See NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Glossary ('elimination strategy'), https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/appendices/glossary
103 Alicia Blair, Mattia de Pasquale, Valentin Gabeff, Mélanie Rufi, Antoine Flahault, 'The end of the elimination strategy: Decisive factors towards sustainable management of COVID-19 in New Zealand', Epidemiologia 3 (1) (2022), https://doi.org/10.3390/epidemiologia3010011, p 138
104 By the end of the pandemic, spending on the Wage Subsidy Scheme amounted to $18 billion of the $70.4 billion allocated to pandemic response and recovery initiatives overall. According to Phase One of the Inquiry, New Zealand's COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund was 'the second highest additional spending and/or revenue foregone in relative terms by any OECD government in response to COVID-19' (although some countries also provided various less direct forms of supports – including guarantees, loans and equity – that New Zealand used only sparingly). See NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 6.2.1.2, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/6-2-what-happened-economic-impact-and-responses
105 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 6.4.1, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/6-4-what-happened-social-sector-impacts-and-responses
106 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 6.4.1, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/6-4-what-happened-social-sector-impacts-and-responses
107 McGuinness Institute, Covid-19 Nation Dates, 2nd ed. (Wellington: MCG Publishing, 2023), pp 33, 172
See also Michael Baker, Amanda Kvalsig, Ayesha Verrall, 'New Zealand's COVID-19 elimination strategy', Medical Journal of Australia 213 no. 5 (13 August 2020), https://doi.org/10.5694/mja2.50735, pp 198–200
108 Calculated from the New Zealand Government COVID-19 Response Weekly Report (13 August 2021), https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2023-01/COVID-19-Response-Weekly-Report-13-August-2021.pdf, p 14
109 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 9.2.4, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/9-2-the-story-of-the-response
110 Edouard Mathieu, Hannah Ritchie, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Cameron Appel, Daniel Gavrilov, Charlie Giattino, Joe Hasell, Bobbie Macdonald, Saloni Dattani, Diana Beltekian, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Max Roser, 'Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases', Our World in Data (11 May 2025), originally released 2020, https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases
111 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 1.1, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/1-1-timeline-of-key-events
112 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 2.4.4, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/2-4-what-happened-pandemic-strategy-and-tools
113 International research on vaccine effectiveness had meanwhile shown that vaccine-induced protection against COVID-19 infection (including from Delta) waned over time. The Phase One report found that officials were aware of this by September 2021. Omicron's arrival coincided with the publication of evidence from the United Kingdom showing that vaccination was less effective in preventing Omicron's transmission, compared with previous variants. See NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 8.4.5, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/8-4-what-happened-vaccination-requirements
114 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 8.4.5, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/8-4-what-happened-vaccination-requirements
115 Edouard Mathieu, Hannah Ritchie, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Cameron Appel, Daniel Gavrilov, Charlie Giattino, Joe Hasell, Bobbie Macdonald, Saloni Dattani, Diana Beltekian, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Max Roser, 'Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases', Our World in Data, 11 May 2025, originally released 2020, https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases
116 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase One, Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 8.6, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/8-6-controversy-over-compulsory-measures
117 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned: Phase Two (2026), COVID-19 by the Numbers, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/phase-two/covid-19-by-the-numbers/