New Zealand is still counting the cost of the Covid pandemic and the response, the second phase of the Covid-19 Royal Commission has found, acknowledging the country recorded fewer deaths per capita than other comparable countries and lower case numbers.
The Covid-19 inquiry report, released on Tuesday, looked at vaccine approval and safety, mandates, lockdowns and tracing technology over 2021 and 2022.
“These key decisions involved some very significant and far-reaching uses of government power to limit the ability of New Zealanders to move about freely, meet with others, and to attend public events…” the report stated.
Spending
It said New Zealand’s March 2020 “‘go hard’ approach immediately proved successful in limiting infection and transmission, safeguarding the healthcare system and preventing deaths” and 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 the month, $12.1 billion had been allocated to business schemes, with another $2.9b allocated at that year’s budget to Covid-related social spending.
“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. However, the financial support measures ultimately cost billions of dollars, contributing to domestic inflation.”
The report said the fund covered a wide range of initiatives such as the vaccination programme and wage subsidies, “however, around half of the total spending was not directly related to the pandemic, including infrastructure projects, and nature conservation and school lunch programmes”.
“Rather than being an actual sum of money ring-fenced by the Government for Covid-19 related purposes, the Response and Recovery Fund was a funding envelope for budget management purposes. It provided an indication of what the Government would be willing to spend, if necessary, to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the health of New Zealanders and the economy.”
The fund started with $50 billion and had a top up of $4b in 2021 and $5b in 2022.
The fourth largest component of the fund was the ‘shovel-ready programme’, described by the inquiry as “not targeted to costs arising from the pandemic”.
“Also, shovel-ready projects are not by nature timely or temporary. Despite the name, they cannot be started immediately; they take time to ramp up, are difficult to stop, and typically run over many years. These constraints played out in 2021 and beyond.”
It called the wage subsidy scheme, the single largest economic measure at $18b as “consistent with the timely, temporary and targeted criteria”. It said the shovel ready scheme was not.
“Spending initiatives that had longer-term consequences, but were not easily reversible, constrained the options available to decisionmakers when the macroeconomic environment shifted in 2021.”
It also said while the wage subsidy scheme was able to be implemented quickly in 2020, alternatives could have been considered to prepare for further lockdowns.
"We are not aware of any sizeable component of the fiscal stimulus programme that was reviewed or cancelled to lessen the stimulus once the undesirability of further stimulus became clear."
Advice
The inquiry found that decision makers were sufficiently informed - but there were some limitations.
That included Cabinet papers providing more information about the health impacts than about social and economic impacts.
“Cabinet papers provided decision-makers with mostly high-level and/or qualitative descriptions of the economic and social impacts of lockdowns, for example GDP lost each week at various alert levels,” it said.
“We did not observe detailed modelling of the impacts of proposed extensions or ending of lockdowns on economic and social outcomes in the Cabinet papers.”
The inquiry said the absence of that data “gave decision-makers an unbalanced picture: they saw clearly the significant adverse health outcomes that lockdown restrictions would avoid, but they did not have clear or detailed forecasts of the adverse economic or social impacts of lockdowns”.
The report said Reserve Bank quantitative easing and other measures used during the pandemic had “significant costs”.
“The Government should review the sections of the Public Finance Act 1989 that deal with giving Crown guarantees and indemnities. The Act should specify more robust and transparent processes for giving large guarantees and indemnities.”
It found that macroeconomic forecasts were unreliable during the pandemic, and recommended in the future, should a similar scenario happen again, those making the decisions should it treat with caution and consider a range of plausible scenarios.
“If fiscal stimulus is considered necessary in a future pandemic, measures should be timely, temporary and targeted.
“Short-term supports that automatically adjust as circumstances change are preferable, and infrastructure maintenance and renewal should be considered ahead of new investment.”
Reaction
Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who was Covid-19 Response Minister at the time, said the decisions made were "considered, appropriate, and guided by the best evidence available at the time".
“Ministers and officials were making decisions in an unprecedented global crisis, using the best evidence available at the time. These decisions helped protect New Zealanders."
ACT leader David Seymour accused Labour of getting carried away with spending.
“Treasury said from the start that Covid spending should be timely, temporary, and targeted. Instead, Labour set up a $60 billion fund spread across 821 programmes, with around half unrelated to the pandemic.
"They went too hard too long, got drunk on power and were still paying for it."
"It's now a very valuable asset for the country to be able to avoid future responses like Labour's, because after they doubled public debt, we literally can't afford to do it that way again."
Responding to Seymour, Hipkins said the deputy PM was "more interested in politics than actually digesting the report".
In Parliament he read a quote from the report that said New Zealand "recorded lower case numbers and fewer Covid-19 deaths per capita than nearly all comparable countries. Our health system did not collapse. The economy rebounded strongly from the initial shock and unemployment rates remained low throughout the pandemic period."
27 Comments
There is fair representation on each side, in the last six paragraphs or so the, let’s say discussion, between Messrs Hipkins and Seymour. In the beginning, given all the unknowns and the perceived threat to health services and livelihoods in general, the government’s administration was both understandable and effective. From not all that long afterwards though, the notion of “drunk with power” is not inaccurate as many, many Aucklanders will attest. Those circumstances are illustrated rather categorically by the electorate itself, respectively the runaway win by the incumbent Labour government in 2020 and then the same government recording the worst defeat of any government in modern times, three years later.
Agreed. Polls and the massive voter losses in Auckland show the impact of punishing Auckland without real cause. People remember this.
Remember when we got to the 80% vax rate or whatever it was, then they changed the rules and decided every part of Auckland had to get there, and South Auckland was miles behind. That’s when it really turned to crap.
Be kind
Or we will be vengeful.
I feel that was just Wgtn bureaucrats taking the Mickey out of AKL. Following the 107 days of AKL lockdown omicron just let rip anyway. I imagine the cost benefit for that portion would have been terrible.
Also I guess we'll never know how NZ went from the top of the queue to get vaccines to lower down. It's hard to vote for Chippie when he was part of that mob and hasn't really explained these things.
But you're right, maybe it's better to move on cause it still cheeses me off.
I believe the tipping point was because summer arrived.
Why would we have ever been top of the queue?
Indeed. But then an even better question is why would you need to say that we were?
It was a quote from Chippie.
More worrying is the angle that "other countries need it more" (end of article, but from reporter). This has also been explored in some Ardern interviews but there's never a clear answer as to what happened
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/the-detail/300219300/the-detail-why-we…
What happened is that there was no "queue", it's a common figure of speech not to be taken literally - seems disingenuous to claim otherwise..
We weren't producing it ourselves, so had to wait. I know there's many still personally aggrieved but what else is there to explain?
If looking enviously at the perceived better responses elsewhere you should note the amount of incumbent (elected) governments that also got the boot in the COVID aftermath.
Quote: "The minister in charge of the Covid-19 response, Chris Hipkins, proclaimed last November that when vaccines were approved, New Zealand would be "at the front of the queue" to get them."
Why wouldn't there have been a queue? It's common to have an ordered waitlist when a product is in high demand a.k.a a queue. That's the word they used. How else could that word be interpreted?
There was no orderly queue outside the pfizer store, it's a metaphor for priority that everybody was supposedly at the front of - ie presumably no politician anywhere claimed to be 16th in the queue.
Yes it's easy mock-worthy fodder for opposition at question time on the semantics, but nothing more. Reasoned explanations are available if you truly want them and so easy to find and query with AI now.
There were some other right royal boo-boos from leading Minister Hipkins at the time. Frontline nursing staff were suffering from the intrusive nasal swabs because they didn’t want RAT tests. The pregnant female journalist who was denied return to NZ even though the ministry advised she could not be legally denied and who only got an apology of sorts when court action was filed. Then the seizure of RAT tests from private industry importers who were then blamed for not ordering enough for the government to steal. In my opinion, a sorry performance from a sorry sort of a minister who wasn’t, and isn’t, the least bit sorry about any of it but now thinks he deserves to be PM again.
Fringe view. The perceived weakness on crime did the damage last time, lockdowns were in the rear view in 2023 and even more so now
Not for this former left voter. They'll need to purge their covid era faces before I reconsider.
"perceived"? Labours announced target was to reduce the prison population by 30%. The entirely foreseeable consequences escaped them.
He Puapua, the PIJF...etc were not forgotten in 2023...or 2026: https://laboursfailures.com/
Perceived consequences too.
Whether prison populations are being reduced or increased makes no immediate difference to the downward crime trend - but one "strategy" certainly costs a whole lot more, and for some reason we're happy to pay for this unnecessary expense above anything else.
30% may be an arbitrary target but so are sentences and other increased targets. What arbitrary numbers would you deem appropriate?
Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who was Covid-19 Response Minister at the time, said the decisions made were "considered, appropriate, and guided by the best evidence available at the time".
How can Interest publish this statement without qualification? It is documented Hipkins, Bloomfield and Verral withheld medical advice they received from CV TAG and Medsafe from ministers and the public.
"The Royal Commission is considering it a failure that the advice did not reach ministers or the public, noting 12 to 17-year-olds were not informed of the risks when making the decision to get vaccinated.
… A Ministry of Health spokesperson acknowledged the commission's finding that it was a significant failing.
“We recognise the importance of timely, evidence-based communication for maintaining public trust and confidence. In this instance, the standard was not met.”
“Medsafe’s technical benefit-risk assessment of the Pfizer vaccine was that it was “not clear”. Medsafe wrote to Pfizer and advised it that it was unable to recommend approval of the vaccine. MAAC instructed Medsafe to grant provisional approval. Why did the government not disclose Medsafe’s benefit-risk assessment to the public?
… On 21 July 2021 CV TAG issued a formal recommendation that the interval between the first and second dose of the vaccine be extended to at least 8 weeks for people under 30 due to the risk of myocarditis. Why was this recommendation not implemented?
… Why do the minutes from CV TAG’s 17 August 2021 meeting record that it was requested that references to increasing dosing intervals potentially providing some protection against myocarditis be removed from public communications? Who made the request and for what purpose?
… Why does the government continue to make the misleading claim that the vaccine remains in the arm when Medsafe’s non clinical assessment shows that the vaccine is distributed to the major organs in the body including the ovaries?
… Why does the government continue to represent that the vaccine is appropriate for all pregnant women when Medsafe’s advice is that the benefit-risk assessment should be a clinical decision (ie a decision made by doctors or other healthcare professionals on a case-by-case basis)?”
Have you tried asking AI?
Pity we didn't have it then as it's a much more efficient way to dispell misinfo
For quite a while now, nearly a couple decades, most of us have been walking around with a little box in our pocket, that holds almost the total sum of human knowledge.
That doesn't appear to have curtailed people's tendency to make up shite.
To label the above post as shite without ever considering the possibility of truth, is only to be closed minded and ignorant. I'm sure the teens who got myocarditis have little sympathy for your narrow outlook.
Jesus, what is it about this site that has people so quick on the assumption and gaslight trigger.
I was making an observation about ghytresd's comment implying the ability to consult AI being able to curtail the spread and adoption of disinfo.
The adoption of the internet doesn't appear to have made people much more objectively minded. I doubt AI will reverse that.
What is "shite" about this statement Pa1nter? It is documented by CV TAG Hipkins did not follow, and did not pass on relevant medical advice from CV TAG to ministers or the public.
"6. Consequently, CV TAG expressed concern about vaccine mandates requiring younger age groups (e.g. <18 years) to be vaccinated with 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and stated: ‘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’.
7. This particular detail has not been carried through to the implementation of this advice.
8. CV TAG met on 23 and 30 November 2021 and discussed the requirement for two doses of the Pfizer vaccine in those aged <18 years, noting a wish to reiterate their previous position.
9. CV TAG noted that:
a. The individual risk to young people of severe disease is very low. For them to make an informed decision not to get a second dose of the vaccine eg, due to potential myocarditis risk is justified.
b. Risks associated with the transmission of COVID-19 throughout Aoteraoa New Zealand among those aged <18 years are insufficient to justify mandating a 2 dose schedule of the Pfizer vaccine prior to working in any environment."
https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/assets/About-us/Who-we-are/Expert-groups…
Yes but the LLMs offer plain language translation of trustworthy sources, I don't think it's (always) made up shite, but on this topic so much of the misinfo was derived from academic (or pseudo academic) material that is just not understood properly and incorrect conclusions are taken and run with - too fast for any mere mortals can keep up with.
ghytread. It is all laid out in the Medsafe and CV Tag documents linked above. The Medsafe and CVTag language is plain.
"The benefit risk balance of Comirnaty (COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine) for active immunisation to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 in individuals 16 years of age and older, is not clear."
This was backed up by the Lancet at the time. 0.84% ARR quoted and linked below supports the linked Medsafe conclusion.
"Although the relative risk reduction (RRR) considers only participants who could benefit from the vaccine, the absolute risk reduction (ARR), which is the difference between attack rates with and without a vaccine, considers the whole population. ARRs tend to be ignored because they give a much less impressive effect size than RRRs: 1·3% for the AstraZeneca–Oxford, 1·2% for the Moderna–NIH, 1·2% for the J&J, 0·93% for the Gamaleya, and 0·84% for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)0006…
Honestly, give AI a go
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