Covid-19 response effective but imperfect: Royal Commission
Wednesday, 11 March 2026
The Government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was effective but imperfect, a Royal Commission has found.
The second leg of the powerful inquiry - secured in the coalition agreements - interrogated key decisions about vaccine safety and mandates, testing and tracing and lockdowns.
It asked if decision-makers considered the broader social and economic impacts and found that on the whole, the Covid-19 response was “considered and appropriate”.
The response was far from perfect though and it was the commission’s “scope to do better” aspect of the 526-page report that Government parties seized on at Parliament on Tuesday afternoon.
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Advice on Covid-19 vaccines for children not shown to ministers: Royal Commission
Health Minister Simeon Brown said the country was pushed to go too hard for too long in a ministerial statement to the House.
“Ordinary New Zealanders paid the price through longer lockdowns than were necessary, through spending that drove up the cost of living, and through health and education systems still catching up today,” Brown said.
Aucklanders endured Alert Level 4 longer than officials advised necessary
The commission found decision-makers kept Aucklanders in Alert Level 4 for longer than health officials advised was necessary.
As a public health risk assessment indicated cases were trending downwards, then director-general of health Sir Ashley Bloomfield recommended shifting Auckland to Alert Level 3.
But then Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins raised the option of holding Auckland at Alert Level 4 for an extra week to be more confident there was no undetected community transmission ‒ and recommended Cabinet take this course.
It did, meaning the super city was locked down for five weeks, instead of four, during the Delta outbreak in late 2021.
Hipkins has pushed back against criticism he ignored official advice saying the Royal Commission missed a “critical piece of information”.
He said the Cabinet paper that helped inform the decision was circulated several days before the Cabinet met, and when ministers did get together the director-general “provided revised advice”.
“That bit is missing from the Royal Commission because it was oral advice, not written advice, so understandable.”
While it’s not possible to verify what was or wasn’t said in Cabinet, the transcript of the media briefing in which Alert Level 4 was extended showed Bloomfield said the lockdown was working but high case numbers “do give us cause for being cautious”.
“Our view, and our advice, is that another week in alert level 4 in Auckland gives us our best chance to really finish the job off here,” he said on September 13 2021.
Advice on Covid-19 vaccines for children not shown to ministers
The commission also found official advice cautioning the Government against mandating two doses of the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine for under-18s was never shown to ministers.
Experts who were part of a technical advisory group advised younger people were more at risk of developing myocarditis - a rare side effect involving inflammation of the heart muscle - after taking the second dose.
They were also less at risk of developing serious infection from Covid-19, and said the risks were insufficient to justify a full vaccination mandate.
The commission found it was a significant failure this advice was not shared with ministers, and that young people were not informed of the risks when making the decision.
Earlier advice raising concerns over vaccine mandates requiring those under 18 years to be fully vaccinated was presented to Hipkins, in his role then of health minister, and then associate health minister Ayesha Verrall. However, it did not include any warnings about the dosage levels.
Brown criticised them for not doing more to question the information at the time, and Hipkins responded that they did seek more advice, which was the same advice that was never shown.
The ministry acknowledged the commission's finding that it was a significant failing, and said it would reflect carefully, including reviewing its processes to ensure its advice was being delivered clearly and consistently.
More broadly on vaccine mandates, the commission found that advice was followed, but more could have been done to assess the impacts on social cohesion and labour market implications.
By not adequately assessing the impacts, the length of vaccine mandates was sometimes out of sync and advice about continuing or removing mandates not well informed.
It noted decision-makers had well-founded fears that ending the elimination strategy would have negative consequences on the health system and disrupted essential services, and there were social pressures for higher vaccination levels and more stringent measures.
The negative impacts were clear, including for some, a loss in trust in the Government, employment and wage impacts on those who declined the vaccine and individuals reported feeling excluded, stigmatised, and experiencing loss of relationships and well-being, while others felt coerced into taking the vaccines, despite their preferences.
‘We got a lot right’ - Ardern
Former prime minister Jacinda Ardern and former finance minister Grant Robertson said the findings of the second phase of the Royal Commission were consistent with the first report.
“We got a lot right. More than most. But there are areas that could have been better,” they said in a joint statement.
They accepted the overall findings and recommendations of both reports and said the job ahead was to ensure the country was better prepared for the next pandemic.
“The commission's observation - ‘there is no scenario in which NZ - or any other country - could have confronted the pandemic without some cost’ will be just as true for the next time. Our best safeguard is to ensure we are as well prepared as we can be.”
ACT Minister David Seymour gave a scathing assessment the Ardern-led government wound up “drunk on power” in its pandemic response.
“It was becoming easy to just do things and be roughly right [but] because they were dealing with people’s basic freedoms and lives and often their livelihoods they should have been more diligent in following the advice that they got.”
On the other hand, the Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson said it was important the Government took a “safety first” approach.
“We’ve seen that data, information sharing and making sure people have access to tests and vaccines were an important part of saving lives.”
The Government will outline its formal response to the recommendations by July.