Lockdown, vaccine decisions ‘considered and appropriate’ – Royal Commission

2026-03-10 - 00:08

The second phase of the Royal Commission into the Covid-19 response has provided a broadly favourable evaluation of the key decisions around vaccine procurement, rollout and mandates, testing technologies and the use of lockdowns. While it also identified lessons learned and pointed out shortcomings in the response, the commission wrote that its “overall assessment of the key decisions has been positive”. The first phase of the commission published its report in November 2024. That evaluation had a broader remit, while the second phase (created by the coalition Government) was tasked with more closely examining the previous government’s decision-making on vaccines, testing and lockdowns. “Overall, this report concludes that Aotearoa New Zealand did well in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. On the whole, the decisions taken and methods used during the Covid-19 response were considered and appropriate,” the commissioners wrote. “We have also identified where they were lacking. New Zealand’s response strategy and settings weren’t always sufficiently responsive to changing circumstances; for example, they weren’t adapted early enough to deal with later variants of the virus. At a time when speed was often critical, some decisions had to be made without enough information and data, or without sufficient consideration of all the impacts that might arise, or without important checks and monitoring.” Repeatedly, the commission noted the difficulty of the situation decision-makers were presented with. In declining to authoritatively say, for example, that the Delta lockdown in Auckland in 2021 went on too long, the commission wrote, “Having considered all the evidence put before us, we are left in no doubt that former ministers and their officials made strenuous efforts to make the right decisions as the pandemic relentlessly progressed. The Government clearly faced a situation of extreme difficulty in October and November 2021. This experience gives rise to some useful lessons about making the best decisions in the worst of circumstances.” Nor did the commission find vaccine mandates were inherently problematic. While, “In hindsight, some vaccination requirements were introduced too slowly, some lasted too long and some went too far”, the commission said “vaccination requirements are a valid intervention that should be kept in the toolbox for future pandemic responses”. The commission produced two volumes – one on its backward-looking findings and one on its lessons and recommendations for the future – as well as appendices breaking down the science of vaccination and a summary of submissions. Here are the key takeaways from its investigation: 1. Vaccine safety and approvals process successful Although some submitters to the Royal Commission, including in public hearings, argued there were significant flaws in the vaccine safety and approvals process, the inquiry unequivocally backed the decisions that were made. “It is difficult to see how the process and information leading to the decision could have been more thorough,” the commission wrote. “We acknowledge that some people disagree with Medsafe’s decision that the benefits of [the Pfizer vaccine] Comirnaty outweighed its risks. They consider the risks of the vaccine then, and now, well outweigh any perceived benefit. We do not agree with that view.” These perspectives were “usually underpinned by a perception that Covid-19 did not present a significant threat to public health” but “the evidence does not support this perception”. Two areas for improvement in future surrounded the communication of adverse reaction risks and grappling with misinformation and disinformation about vaccines. The commission found that while “the Government made numerous efforts to communicate vaccine safety issues, including the emerging risk of myocarditis and pericarditis, [...] key messages were not always explicit or emphasised or were lost in the volume of information providers were receiving from several official sources”. It advised stronger coordination of messaging in the future. The commission also found decision-makers “did not anticipate the extent to which concerns about vaccine safety would emerge and seize attention”. It recommended an agency be tasked with monitoring research and advising on policy regarding trust and social cohesion. 2. Some mandates lasted too long or went too far The most critical findings in the report came in the section on vaccine mandates, where the Royal Commission said they were imperfectly applied. However, it validated the fundamental use of requirements, saying they were a worthy tool but needed to balance human rights, social and economic impacts and the public health benefits. Perhaps the headline finding centres on the mandate in the education sector which affected some under-18s who worked in the field. Here, the commission found, the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group twice said consideration should be given to exempting these young people from needing to have a second dose of vaccine – however, ministers were not presented with the key warning. The first flag was in a report on November 5, 2021, where the group noted the lack of early data meant “consideration should be given to permitting younger people who have had one dose to be permitted to work or undertake other activities covered by the mandate”. This advice was passed to ministers on December 22 and when then-associate health minister Ayesha Verrall examined it on January 7, she noted, “CV TAG’s concerns, at the time, were about insufficient data on safety of second dose”. However, the advisory group had on December 9 told the ministry in stronger terms that the two-dose schedule “may add unnecessary risk to increasing the likelihood of myocarditis as an outcome in this population”. The commission found this advice was “different in substance from the November advice” and that it “was not provided to ministers”. Beyond this issue, the commission found (in line with phase one, several court cases and the subsequent acknowledgement of many decision-makers) that many occupational vaccine mandates could have been rolled back earlier. It criticised the time between decisions to remove mandates and the orders coming into effect (which at times could take a month or longer). In addition, the advice provided to ministers contained less information about labour market impacts of the mandates than the commission said would have been available to officials. At the same time, it noted that there was significant public pressure for mandates and at times ministers “pushed back” on recommendations – for example, for the Defence Force and NZ Police, where leaders in those agencies sought mandates which ministers acknowledged “were right at the margins”. 3. The need for a changed testing strategy could have been foreseen In its evaluation of testing technologies, the Royal Commission picked up a theme it had examined closely in phase one and would return to when it vetted the use of lockdowns: That the Government was not ready for a change in strategy from elimination and that the transition was disruptive and inefficient as a result. That can be seen clearly in the area of testing, where the reliance on slow but super-accurate PCR tests made sense during elimination. However, that technology would never work when New Zealand transitioned away from elimination and too little was done to prepare for that eventuality. “Key decisions on testing technologies were well-informed on technical matters, but not on longer-term strategic choices and consequences. In particular, there was not enough attention given in advance to the testing tools and strategies that should be applied following the end of the elimination strategy,” the commission found. The Ministry of Health’s chief science adviser, Ian Towne, said ministers had to push officials to consider the long view: “The ministry took a strongly precautionary approach and so planning for an exit strategy was triggered mainly by politicians rather than officials,” he told the commission. 4. Lockdown decisions were ‘reasonable and evidence-based’ As with the vaccine mandates, the Royal Commission found ministers could have been provided with more detailed information and modelling about the social and economic impacts of lockdowns. In particular, while health advice was provided in systematic and quantitative formats, social and economic effects were often covered in an ad-hoc and qualitative manner in Cabinet papers and official advice. That said, the commission found “decision-makers were sufficiently informed” and the “approach taken by decision-makers to balancing interests was reasonable and evidence-based”. As with testing, where things got difficult was the transition from elimination, when too little work had been done to prepare for alternative policy approaches. “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.” This meant the Covid-19 Protection Framework (which replaced the alert level system and didn’t include lockdowns) was not ready for implementation until late November 2021. “A significant change in circumstances occurred in October 2021 when decision-makers realised that elimination was no longer achievable, even as vaccination rates were increasing – and they did not account for this clearly in the strategy and subsequent alert level decisions,” the commission found. “If decision-makers had taken this into account as we suggest, we consider (with the benefit of hindsight) that it was open to them to reach the view sooner that it was safe to lower some restrictions.” On two occasions, Cabinet overrode health advice in favour of a precautionary approach. In the first, ministers decided to keep Auckland at Level 4 for five days longer than recommended in September 2021 – but this did not affect the overall length of the lockdown, in which Auckland then continued at Level 3 until December 2. In the second, ministers decided to maintain some restrictions at the Auckland regional boundary over that summer (between December 15, 2021 and January 16, 2022). While officials had advised the boundary should be completely lifted, ministers instead decided exit would be permitted for those who were vaccinated (which was more than 90 percent of the population) or who had had a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours. On other occasions, ministers overrode health advice in the opposition direction – for example, Cabinet reduced restrictions in Auckland in early November despite officials recommending they be maintained for at least another week. While the Royal Commission suggested it may have been open to ministers to reduce restrictions in Auckland earlier, it did not explicitly conclude that the lockdown in Auckland went on too long. As with phase one, the second phase report hedged on that issue, noting that the lack of transition planning could not be excluded “as contributing factors to the duration of the Auckland lockdown” but “it may be that outcomes would have been the same or not significantly different overall if decision-makers had reassessed their strategy, changed their decision-making process, or been provided additional data in the way we have suggested”. 5. Treasury advised in 2021 that the fiscal response was prudent, but that changed in 2022 Official advice to ministers consistently backed the overall economic and fiscal response to the pandemic, the Royal Commission found. “Treasury advice in 2021 was that the fiscal response associated with lockdowns was prudent,” it wrote. “Ministers were aware that the fiscal response to Covid-19 was causing net government debt to increase. Even so, Treasury advice was supportive of the economic measures that were in place, noting on more than one occasion that there were not any strong macroeconomic or fiscal reasons for reducing the level of fiscal support, given the benefits of maintaining certainty for businesses and individuals, and minimising hardship.” By 2022, however, it said more should have been done to wind back the stimulus. Programmes like the shovel-ready projects list and the Reserve Bank’s Funding for Lending scheme were ultimately unnecessarily inflationary and had no mechanism to be reversed or ended early. “The option to change course is important because, in a crisis where there is considerable uncertainty, later information may challenge the original assumptions and understandings that underpinned early decisions. The shift in understanding about the nature of the economic shock caused by Covid-19 is a good example of a circumstance in which the opportunity to reverse earlier fiscal commitments could have been valuable,” the commission advised. For most of the pandemic, a strong health response was aligned with a strong economic response. However, the commission said that became less true during the transition away from elimination and decision-makers were not necessarily sufficiently attuned to that change. “We have not seen any obvious signs of decline in high-level economic indicators that decision-makers should have been concerned about when making key lockdown decisions in the second half of 2021,” the commission found. The most significant change was in inflation, but even here, officials advised proceeding anyway. “The Treasury’s advice throughout the second half of 2021 noted the risk of inflation, often in the context of international economic conditions and supply chain disruption. However, although the Treasury and Ministry of Social Development flagged that providing financial supports risked compounding inflationary pressures, their advice nevertheless was that, on balance, it was appropriate to ‘stay the course’. Decision-makers followed that advice.”