2.5 Conclusion to Part 2 Te Whakakapi mō Wāhanga 2
2.5 Conclusion to Part 2
Te Whakakapi mō Wāhanga 2
While our overall assessment of the key decisions has been positive, there are nonetheless opportunities to develop lessons for the future, based on common themes that emerge strongly from the preceding chapters.
We draw those threads together here – not only as a reminder of our conclusions on the key pandemic decisions made in 2021–2022, but to prepare the ground for the lessons set out in Part 3.
The themes fall into five broad groupings.
2.5.1 Earlier work on strategies and scenario planning would have strengthened government's response to change, especially the shift away from the elimination strategy
Mēnā i mahia ngā rautaki me te whakamahere ā-āhuatanga i mua atu, kua kaha ake te urupare a te kāwanatanga ki ngā panonitanga, inā hoki te hekenga atu i te rautaki aukati-katoa
For much of the period under review, the elimination strategy guided government decision-making. Under the elimination strategy, every single case of COVID-19 needed to be managed. This required clear rules (about social distancing, for example), an accurate system for testing and tracing, and high levels of public compliance. It was assumed these would be required until a safe and effective vaccine was available and a sufficient proportion (initially undefined) of the population was vaccinated.
However, circumstances changed. As anticipated, vaccines became available. But even as the vaccine rollout began, the more transmissible Delta strain arrived. So while the risks of severe illness to vaccinated people were decreasing, it was becoming much less likely that the virus could be eliminated. As a result, by December 2021, the Government had implemented a suppression and minimisation approach, although the transition from elimination was not clear-cut. The new strategic approach was given effect through the COVID-19 Protection Framework and was closely linked to the vaccine rollout.
Moving from an elimination strategy to a suppression strategy changes how risk is tolerated and managed. The strategy no longer requires that every single case be identified and managed – instead, it requires overall policy settings and public health measures that keep case numbers low. This meant the Government could now make choices about when it should directly set rules and when it should leave others to make judgements about their own safety (or the safety of their employees, visitors and communities). In essence, a suppression strategy offers more flexibility about how much decision-making needs to be centralised in government.
Shifting to the COVID-19 Protection Framework required a fundamental re-think of the whole system of COVID-19 rules and processes. The Inquiry's Phase One report found that the transition from the elimination strategy to suppression and minimisation was not discussed or socialised early enough.968 Our own examination of key decisions over the transition period reinforces what Phase One found.
Decision-making in late 2021 was clearly challenging. The virus was evolving rapidly. Greater access to vaccines and more information (including some misinformation and disinformation) about the virus were changing some people's approach to risk. The cumulative social and economic impacts – some arising from the virus itself and others from the public health measures imposed – were increasingly evident.
More comprehensive and robust response strategies should have been in preparation much earlier – both to deal with emerging challenges within an elimination strategy and to anticipate a change in strategy (to suppression, for example). Strategies should have considered a range of scenarios (such as an uncontained community outbreak or new strains of COVID-19) and options to address them. They should also have identified the trade-offs to be considered if such scenarios arose – something that would have improved the quality of advice prepared under urgency. In particular, officials could have started developing a suppression strategy much earlier in 2021 – ideally from February that year, when the Cominarty vaccine had been approved for use in the immunisation programme.
Because alternative strategies had not been well-explored, it was harder to re-think each individual intervention as circumstances changed. For example, the Government did not make Rapid Antigen Tests easily accessible by the private sector until early 2022, after the existing PCR testing system had been overwhelmed. Under the elimination strategy, the precision of PCR tests was of paramount importance. Under the suppression strategy, however, ready access to tests became more important because people needed to make quick decisions about whether to isolate or return to work, for example.
The transition from the elimination strategy (and the Alert Level System supporting it) to the COVID-19 Protection Framework was far from smooth. The Framework was approved in October 2021, but legislative change and more transition planning were needed. As a result, the Framework was not introduced until 2 December, bringing the Auckland lockdown to an end.
It could have ended before then if the anticipated shift to a suppression strategy had been prepared for earlier and signalled to the public in advance. The Phase One report pinpoints the reason why this had not happened: 'everyone was on the dance floor and there was no one on the balcony, looking down at what was happening'.969
The lack of scenario planning also meant that there was less prepared, and therefore less to build on, when circumstances changed. This increased the challenges of developing policy and communicating the resulting decisions. This made it more difficult to keep the public abreast of rule changes as the Alert Level system was first modified (to introduce three steps within Alert Level 3) and then replaced with the COVID-19 Protection Framework.
Our analysis of the Government's COVID-19 strategies – how and when they were developed, and especially how key decisions supported transitions from one strategy to another – informs the strategy-setting lessons outlined in Part 3.
2.5.2 While decisions were mainly well-founded, more investment in evidence, modelling and monitoring would have strengthened decision-making
Ahakoa he whaitake te nuinga o ngā whakatau, i te nui ake o te haumitanga ki ngā taunakitanga, ki te tauira, me te aroturuki kua
kaha ake te kounga o te whakatau
Threaded through the evidence, particularly in the interviews with senior officials, was a story of officials and decision-makers working and listening hard to address fast-changing circumstances. We heard about rapid decision-making in response to community outbreaks.
While many aspects of decision-making proved effective, some standard checks and balances were curtailed. For example, many legislative changes went ahead without a Regulatory Impact Statement (an independent assessment provided by the responsible agency) and many Cabinet papers progressed with far less inter-agency consultation and peer review than normally required.
Despite this, we mostly saw good decision-making; New Zealand was better protected from COVID-19 than most other countries. In particular, the vaccine approval and safety systems adapted quickly to ensure rapid access to a vaccine that had been through all approval steps, with comprehensive monitoring.
In light of the challenges of high-paced, high-stakes decision-making in a pandemic, the aim should be to improve the information available to support future decision-makers. This includes better modelling (to predict effects) and monitoring (to discover the actual effects). Better models could have been built so that decision-makers had access to a range of response scenarios and options and were more informed about the possible social and economic impacts. There were gaps and delays in implementing decisions and monitoring their impacts – most notably in respect of employment mandates. Addressing these shortcomings could have given decision-makers more options later in the pandemic.
Our analysis of government decision-making in 2021-2022 leads to very much the same conclusions as those Phase One inquiry reached about the first year of the pandemic.
For much of 2020–2022, planning for recovery, preparing exit strategies and considering possible future scenarios received less attention than they should have. Complex and urgent operational decision-making absorbed the time and energy of ministers and officials. The focus on ensuring the most up-to-date public health intelligence and processes for providing advice under urgency meant there was less scope for Cabinet to consider the trade-offs and longer-term impacts that would normally form a key part of the decision-making process, or to consider possible new pandemic and response scenarios.970
As the pandemic continued into 2022, increasing fatigue and unrelenting work pressures exacted a high cost on all those delivering the response, from decision-makers to frontline workers. Officials told us of the challenges in balancing the pastoral care of their staff against the demands of responding to a pandemic.
We offer several suggestions for strengthening the decision-making process in Part 3 – see Lessons One and Two.
2.5.3 Social and economic impacts were considered, but unevenly, or at a high level only
I whakaarotia ngā pānga pāpori me ngā pānga ōhanga, engari kāore i ōrite te whāinga, ā, he āhua taumata-teitei noa
Achieving public health goals and also mitigating social and economic impacts (of both the pandemic and the response to it) was perhaps the Government's most difficult challenge throughout the pandemic. It informed all the major decisions made in 2021-2022 – the decision to lock down 1.5 million Aucklanders for 107 days, to roll out 11.77 million COVID-19 vaccines doses up to 30 September 2022,971 to require up to 40 percent of the workforce (in the region of one million workers) to be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs. These measures saved lives, but they came at a significant cost – including billions of dollars allocated to financial support for businesses and households (which contributed, along with other factors, to domestic inflation) and lost employment for those unwilling to comply with mandates.
Our Terms of Reference ask us to assess 'whether … decisions struck a reasonable balance between COVID-19 public health goals and minimising social and economic disruption'.972
We have assessed the ways decision-makers balanced these factors (although not all social and economic impacts are relevant to every decision). This has not been straightforward, for several reasons.
First, social and economic impacts are very broad concepts. For decision-makers, interpreting the social and economic consequences of a public health intervention requires knowledge of multiple policy domains, options, mitigating strategies and social licence. It also requires anticipating the possible consequences of not implementing a measure in the context of an unknown virus.
The evidence shows these factors were considered when many decisions were made. Ideally, though, decision-makers would have been better supported with clearer, more specific evidence about the effects of public health measures. This would have helped them be more specific about the social and economic impacts that they needed to balance alongside public health goals. For example, there was insufficient attention to potential labour market impacts from occupational mandates, both to support decision-making, and in terms of monitoring the impacts for those who declined to get vaccinated.
Of course, some information that would have assisted decision-makers was not available at the time. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, there is an opportunity to gather evidence about the key social and economic impacts of decisions taken to achieve public health goals. This information can inform the response to a future pandemic.
Secondly, most decision-makers told us that no trade-off between public health goals and social and economic impacts was required. Based on their experience in 2020, and the advice they received from officials, they considered that choosing a strong public health response would also lead to the best social and economic outcomes.
However, knowing the expected social and economic costs of a public health measure is essential for deciding whether to impose it. And the balance between those costs may change over time if, for example, the policy becomes less effective or too costly to maintain.
For instance, given high rates of vaccination among those workforces covered by occupational mandates, it is important to know the expected social and economic costs of those mandates, in order to decide whether, on balance, they are justified and should be imposed. Similarly, information about the changing nature of the virus and diminishing compliance with restrictions is essential for decision-makers to be able to reassess the effectiveness of lockdowns and the costs of maintaining them.
Even policies that have an overall public health benefit can have declining benefits and rising costs at the margin. For example, high rates of vaccination in the population confer a public benefit by reducing cases of serious illness and reducing the impact on health services, and they may reduce the spread of the disease. But judgements are still required about how high the vaccination rate needs to be to achieve these benefits, and at what point the cost of reaching those who are unvaccinated (who face higher access barriers and/or are more vaccine hesitant) outweighs the benefits.
The ways public health policies are combined and deployed can have quite different social and economic impacts. For example, earlier engagement with Māori and Pacific peoples could have improved vaccination levels and therefore allowed lockdowns to finish sooner, or availability of Rapid Antigen Tests might have enabled more flexibility in the design of occupational mandates.
Decision-making needed to take account of the social and economic impacts on New Zealanders at a granular level, including cumulative impacts and potential longer-term consequences – not only the costs borne at the time, but the long-term costs (for example, in debt repayment) faced by future generations.
Finally, we saw that decision-makers put in place numerous policies and supports to mitigate harmful social and economic effects; they included wage subsidies, support for school students, and social welfare support in partnership with community groups. Knowing that some public health measures could have negative effects alongside the protection they provided, decision-makers sought to reduce those consequences as far as possible.
All of this demonstrates that, in a future pandemic, gathering stronger evidence about the relationships between specific public health interventions, and social and economic impacts, will greatly benefit decision-making. Lessons Three and Four explore this matter further.
2.5.4 Trust was crucial to the Government's response to COVID-19 but eroded over time
He mea matua te whakawhirinaki ki te urupare a te Kāwanatanga ki te KOWHEORI-19’, engari i memeha haere i te roanga o te wā
The COVID-19 pandemic showed that people's trust in government and their fellow citizens is a significant determinant of the success (or otherwise) of the response to a major public health crisis. New Zealand entered the pandemic with high levels of trust in government institutions. The Government would have been unable to implement the wide-reaching measures represented in the key decisions, such as lockdowns, or achieved very high vaccination rates without broad public buy-in. The levels of trust in the community will be critical to the nature and success of any future pandemic response.
It is difficult to definitively assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trust in New Zealand. In the initial stages, trust surged. In a survey undertaken in mid-2020, about 75 percent of New Zealanders agreed that the management of the pandemic had increased their trust in government.973 In the first half of 2021, New Zealanders had one of the most favourable views of their country's COVID-19 response in the world, far exceeding public perceptions in countries that had experienced higher mortalities such as Sweden, the United Kingdom and Canada.974
Over time, levels of trust declined from these highs, although it is unclear whether this was due to the pandemic or the public health response. Several surveys including Statistics NZ's General Social Survey,975 the Public Service Commission's Kiwis Count survey976 and Verian's Public Sector Reputation Index977 report declines in trust in the government and other significant institutions in recent years. We also heard through our engagements and submissions that many people felt that some of the key decisions examined in this report reduced their trust in government.
As the virus and the response evolved, the Government was required to manage a complex and ongoing communication challenge. Often on a daily basis, it had to provide New Zealanders with clear, simple messages about what changes in the virus and the response meant for them, while also explaining the complexities of the science and the many trade-offs the Government was having to make in responding to COVID-19.
Nevertheless, misinformation, disinformation and vaccine hesitancy rose over the period we reviewed, and we heard that many people felt stigmatised and/or excluded. In Part 3, we explore these topics further.
2.5.5 The legislative framework should have provided clearer powers and stronger safeguards
Me mārama ake ngā mana, me pakari ake hoki ngā whakahaumaru i roto i te anga ture
Many key decisions were made under legislation enacted specifically for the COVID-19 response, notably the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. The Act explicitly prioritised public health over other considerations, and this emphasis was reflected in decision-making.
We have seen that decisions made by Cabinet in many cases determined when and how the powers under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act would be exercised, and in most cases decisions by the Minister simply reflected decisions already made by Cabinet. The primary consideration of social and economic factors appears to have occurred at Cabinet level.
Although decision-makers were sufficiently informed about economic and social impacts, that information came from a broad range of sources and was not adequately captured in Cabinet papers. While this partly reflects the nature of Cabinet decision-making in a crisis, we consider it is unsatisfactory for decisions affecting human rights on a broad scale. A publicly accessible record of the various considerations that were put in front of decision-makers at the time is essential for transparency and public confidence.
The framework for decision-making under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 did not set any limits or requirements on what Cabinet had to take into account when determining the nature and extent of public health interventions. Lesson Two considers the role and scope of the legislation used to govern pandemic responses – including what can be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic about designing legislation that provides for measures such as occupational mandates and lockdowns to be used, and the need for substantive safeguards.
Footnotes
968 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry in 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
969 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry in COVID-19 Lessons Learned, Phase One – Main Report (2024), Part 2 Section 2.6.1, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/2-6-our-assessment
970 NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry in COVID-19 Lessons Learned, Phase One – Main Report (2024), Part Two Section 9.2.4, https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/9-2-the-story-of-the-response
971 Our World in Data, COVID-19 vaccine doses administered, 14 February 2021 to 30 December 2022, https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/covid?time=earliest..2022-12-30&country=~NZL&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&hideControls=false&Metric=Vaccine+doses&Interval=Cumulative&R elative+to+population=false
972 Royal Commission of Inquiry (COVID-19 Lessons) Amendment Order (No 2) 2024, Schedule 6 cl 4(3), https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2024/0177/latest/LMS984331.html
973 Shaun Goldfinch, Ross Taplin & Robin Gauld, 2021, Trust in government increased during the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia and New Zealand, Australian Journal of Public Administration No. 80: (06 January 2021), https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12459, pp 3–11
974 Kat Devlin, Moira Fagan, Aidan Connaughton, People in Advanced Economies Say their Society is More Divided Than Before Pandemic, Pew Research Centre (23 June 2021), https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-advanced-economies-say-their-society-is-more-divided-than-before-pandemic/
975 StatsNZ, Wellbeing statistics: 2023 (25 September 2024), https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/wellbeing-statistics-2023/
976 Public Service Commission, Kiwis Count, https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/data/kiwis-count,
977 Verian, Public Sector Reputation Index, (5 June 2025), https://www.veriangroup.com/en-nz/news-and-insights/public-sector-reputation-index-nz