New Zealand Covid inquiry finds vaccine mandates were ‘reasonable’
New Zealand Covid inquiry finds vaccine mandates were ‘reasonable’
Commissioners also say the vaccine requirements eroded public trust and call for investment to plan for the next pandemic
Summary
New Zealand’s royal commission into its Covid-19 response found vaccine mandates were reasonable based on available data but acknowledged they harmed social cohesion.
The report praised the country’s elimination strategy for achieving one of the lowest Covid death rates among developed nations while preventing healthcare system collapse.
However, it criticized prolonged lockdowns, weak health system preparedness, and a lack of planning for future crises.
Commissioners urged broad investment in pandemic readiness and emphasized the importance of both frontline and planning staff.
A second phase of the inquiry will review vaccine harms and conclude in 2026.
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I moved to NZ about 7 years ago and lived through this. I supported the earlier lockdowns and got the vaccine before it became mandated.
Having said that, the mandates that the government pursued were absolutely ruthless, and put in place at a time where efficacy was already reduced due to new variants. It did a lot of harm to society, and we still live with those consequences today.
a lot of harm to society
You mean one of the lowest per capita death rates of any country with transparent reporting? Explain to me how saving tens of thousands of lives in New Zealand was bad without sounding like a dickhead...
From the report:
Contentious public health measures like vaccine mandates wore away at what had initially been a united wall of public support for the pandemic response; along with the rising tide of misinformation and disinformation, this created social fissures that have not entirely been repaired.
In another words, it hurt their poor little feelings
In Chapter 8, the report goes on to talk about how hurting their poor little feelings debased the authority of the government and the authors offer suggestions on how to do mandates better during the next pandemic.
This seems to assume there was a response by the center-left government that could both be pro-social and would not be attacked by conservative douchebags. They're not going to be impressed by a finely threaded needle, they'll just up their ask, because reducing the popularity of their opponents is the point of conservative propaganda, not the actual policy.
Precisely
The report is worth a read: https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/
Chapter 8 is 81 pages long, if there's a point you think is particularly insightful in dealing with conservative grievance and propaganda, you'll need to be more specific.
Good job on trying, but it seems like there's little room for nuanced debate here because "antivaxer stupid"
I'm also assuming a lot of people here don't realise Auckland spent four months locked in their houses while they threatened to keep us there forever unless the entire fucking country had 90 percent vaccination rates... and they pursued the mandates even at those high vaccination rates. Against the MoH advice...
My wife is a therapist and she is still dealing with the fallout of those lockdowns.
Most places had some type of shelter in place orders for a period of time that was difficult for people to handle. I never thought your comment was anti-vax.
Here's the thing, it was a global pandemic, any decision a government made was only going to mitigate disaster, not prevent it entirely. Either a lot of people died or a lot of people had a really difficult time. I tend to think preventing deaths comes first. If your argument is NZ wasn't flawless in their handling of the pandemic response, sure, no one was. But they did a better job than almost any other country. Zero countries had a satisfied populous after the pandemic. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You'll learn from it and hopefully do even better next time.
Here's some perspective, in the US we had more people die in the pandemic than any other single event in American history. More than WWII, more than the Spanish flu, more than the civil war, etc. The damage to our psyche from all that death, far exceeds 4 months in lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Over 1 million dead here, be grateful your country at least sought to keep you alive.
I am grateful for how NZ handled it. I'm mostly critiquing the very end of the pandemic when the government started going against ministry advice. I appreciate how lucky we were. I don't know anyone who died from covid.
Many Auckland houses have a section/yard, so residents could still get outside.
Why wasn't it closer to a 100% rate? Too many people listening to internet wack jobs or far right extremist who wanted to undermine the government.
Having said that, the mandates that the government pursued were absolutely ruthless
Good.
and put in place at a time where efficacy was already reduced due to new variants.
"Reduced" is not the same as "safe."
It did a lot of harm to society, and we still live with those consequences today.
Like what? What horrible burden are you living with in New Zealand because of this?
Thank. You.
Ez upvote holy fuck I'd trade places in a second as an anti-authoritarian, high-covid-risk person ill absolutely take that deal vs living in the land of the walking small pox blankets where the Small Business ™️ must flow.
The absolute fucking gall of comparing that to the 14 characteristics of fascism. Must be nice to be so insulated.
Why is it good they were ruthless? Did you live here? Do you know what happened? Is it based on science to force mandates on a population that's already 95 percent vaccinated? Because it was definitely not what our Ministry of Health recommended...
At the time the mandates were active, Auckland was 95 percent vaxed and rife with covid. At that stage, was it worth it telling five percent of the population they were not allowed to be anywhere but in a supermarket? Was it reasonable taking their jobs away from them? Did the costs outweigh the benefits?
The government's covid response did a lot of damage to NZ. My wife is a therapist and works with victims of sexual and domestic abuse. Turns out that locking people up with their abusers for months on end is... Very bad for people too.
Vax mandates lead to a huge division in society, including racial and political divides. It will take a long time to recover from that.
I'm not saying all lockdowns are bad, I'm not saying vaccines are bad, I'm saying there's a cost benefit analysis to be made, and NZ definitely went above and beyond what was reasonable. Towards the end, cabinet kept going against ministry recommendations. Their covid response had become a political tool, not a response based on reason.
We had less deaths than we would have had normally. We also saved a bucket load of jobs by supporting businesses. We, objectively, did better than pretty much anyone else. What seems to continually escape people's attention is that the NZ health system is shit. We have fuck all hospital beds and fuck all staff. Letting the virus run free would have overrun our system in days. A better health system that ours might have more options than we did, but as it was, we did bloody well.
I also lived through this, as did everybody i know and care about.
Everyone wants to talk about fascism these days, but give covid restrictions a complete pass. I've never seen anything like that in my lifetime, where you actually couldn't go to restaurants without a pass, and had to have papers in order to justify being out in public. Even if you think it was justified, you have to acknowledge that it was extreme authoritarianism.
I saw people lose their jobs and get excluded from society in a city that was 95 percent vaccinated, while somehow all my vaccinated friends and myself were sick of covid.
The level of punitive damage done by the mandates was beyond scientific reason. It also went against ministry of health recommendations.
Is it authoritarian to say you shouldn't drive without a license? Is it authoritarian to say you shouldn't drink and drive?
Yeah i suppose it is technically authoritarian, but society is overwhelmingly ok with it since it is indisputably a good idea. Covid restrictions did not have universal agreement, weren't as obviously effective and common sense, were unconstitutional in some cases, but most of all too new to have trust from everyone, particularly when messaging was inconsistent or logically flawed.
lol