Inside the disputed advice on teenage Covid‑19 vaccinations
Saturday, 4 April 2026
EXPLAINER: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has faced serious scrutiny over whether he saw advice against mandating two shots of the Covid-19 vaccine for teenagers.
The issue has been traversed a lot in Parliament, with Winston Peters suggesting teenagers were put at unnecessary risk.
But the exact finding of the Royal Commission is nuanced and complex, with the advice unveiled advising the Government against vaccination mandates for teenagers, not the vaccination itself.
Below is an explainer into the crucial questions about this now controversial advice and teenage vaccinations, answered through publicly-available documentation and the Inquiry itself.
What did the Royal Commission say?
The Phase Two report from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 response found that a group of health experts advised against mandating both doses for children.
It found that advice was never passed on to ministers and, as such, the mandate remained in place.
The Royal Commission considered the failure “significant”.
Who was mandated?
In October 2021, the Government announced it would mandate two doses of the Pzifer vaccine for education workers.
They included children aged 12 to 17 in the mandate, who were working or volunteering in home-based education and care.
The mandate was put in place to avoid further disruption at schools and to encourage face-to-face learning and give parents confidence to send their children to school.
It was put in around the same time the Government introduced vaccine certificates - which were made available for under-18s but never made compulsory. These vaccine certificates could be used to bar people from certain venues, including cafes and restaurants.
Hipkins said the education mandate included a “very small” group of 12 to 17-year-olds, which included teenagers who lived somewhere with home-based early childhood care.
“To be clear, there was never a vaccine mandate for all 12 to 17-year-olds.”
What was the advice exactly?
A technical advisory group of health experts called the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group - CV TAG for short - didn’t support mandating both doses of the vaccine for under-18s.
It provided advice to the Ministry of Health less than one month after the mandate was announced, but it wasn’t passed on to ministers.
The group delivered further advice on vaccine mandates to Sir Ashley Bloomfield, head of the health response at the time, on December 9, 2021.
CV TAG advised that just one dose of the vaccine should be mandated for under 18s, not two, due to risks around myocarditis (a rare side effect involving inflammation of the heart muscle).
CV TAG did support under 18s being vaccinated with both doses, but because young people faced more risk of developing myocarditis and were less at risk of serious infection from Covid-19, the group advised against making both doses mandatory.
The commission said the failure to relay the advice was mitigated by the widely published information at the time of the risk of myocarditis, but this did not diminish the issue of mandates reflecting outdated advice.
So what’s this about Hipkins seeing the advice?
Hipkins has stood by the commission’s finding that ministers never saw the advice, but that position was challenged in late March when a cabinet paper omitted from the Royal Commission inquiry suggested the advice had in fact been seen.
The paper was in Hipkins’ name and was presented to a committee meeting attended by several ministers, although Hipkins — then the Covid Response Minister — was not listed as present in the minutes.
The advice found in the cabinet paper, presented to the Social Wellbeing Committee in March 2022, said:
The individual health risk of Covid-19 to under 18 year olds was low
The risk of transmission among under 18 year olds was insufficient to justify mandating a two-dose schedule in order to work in any environment
A two-dose schedule, particularly administered in the shortest possible clinical timeframe, may add an unnecessary risk of myocarditis in this population
Requiring vaccination certificates for children could unintentionally exclude them from educational activities
There should not be pressure on young people to receive both primary course doses of vaccine in the shortest possible interval
Informal exclusions are facilitated by issuing vaccination certificates for those aged under 18 years.
The list of ministers present included chairperson Carmel Sepuloni, Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson, Kelvin Davis, Dr Megan Woods, Andrew Little, Poto Williams, Damien O’Connor, Kris Faafoi, Peeni Henare, Willie Jackson, Ayesha Verrall, Meka Whaitiri and Priyanca Radhakrishnan.
It’s also worth noting the paper landed around the time vaccine mandates were being lifted, so even if ministers had seen it, it’s unlikely it would have changed much.
By that point, the mandate had been in place for around seven months.
Hipkins has said that he was unaware of it when making the decision to extend the mandates to the small group of teenagers who worked in educational settings.
He insists he never saw the advice and any suggestion of a cover-up was “just utterly wrong”.
The commission also identified another instance where the advice was referenced - this time in material addressed to Hipkins and then-associate health minister Ayesha Verrall.
The commission reasoned that although Verrall was aware of CV TAGs “general concerns”, only the second set of advice was referenced, and that did not include any recommendations to mandate just one dose.
It referred to the first set of advice, raising concerns about vaccine mandates for younger age groups to be fully vaccinated.
“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,” it stated.
Verrall wrote in the margins that “CV TAG’s concerns, at the time, were about insufficient data on safety of second dose”.
Who gave the advice?
CV TAG was a technical advisory group of health experts which reported to the Ministry of Health on the use of vaccines.
This group included Dr Ian Town as its chair, who is the Ministry of Health’s chief science advisor, and 13 other health experts across the country independent from the ministry.
What was the advice?
CV TAG advised the Ministry of Health twice against mandating the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine for children under 18, noting “unnecessary risk” for developing myocarditis.
It advised only one dose of the vaccine should be mandated, as younger people were more at risk of developing myocarditis than older age groups after the second dose of Pfizer vaccine and less at risk of severe disease from Covid-19.
A robust antibody response and early limited clinical effectiveness data indicated some protection from Covid-19 after a single dose of Pfizer vaccine for teenagers.
It advised the Government to consider permitting younger people who had had one dose to be allowed to work or undertake other activities covered by the mandate.
The advice not shown was found in a paper on how the Government should define being fully vaccinated, provided to the Ministry of Health in November in 2021.
Why was this advice not shown to ministers?
Though we still don’t know why ministers were never shown the advice, in a statement provided to The Post, the ministry’s deputy director-general from the public health agency, Dr Andrew Old, said public servants “fell short”.
He said the report highlighted the advice was “delayed” in being provided to ministers or was not clearly communicated to the public in a timely way.
'We acknowledge the commission's finding that this 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.
“We will be reflecting carefully on this finding, including reviewing our processes to assure ourselves that our advice is being delivered clearly and consistently.”
Timeline:
2021:
June: Medsafe approves use of Pfizer for those aged 12 and over
August: Cabinet agrees those aged 12 and older to be vaccinated following CV TAG recommendations
October: Government announces vaccine certificates, including certificates made available for those 12 and over and education workplace mandate for those aged 12 and older
November: Advice provided by CV TAG to Ministry of Health against mandating both doses, which was not passed on
December 9: CV TAG provides updated advice to Bloomfield, stating two doses for vaccine mandates isn’t justified. Two doses “may add unnecessary risk to increasing the likelihood of myocarditis”. Recommends considering one dose for under 18s for all vaccine mandates.
December 22: Advice passed on to Hipkins by the ministry seeking policy decisions on vaccination orders for those aged 18 and older. Only the December advice and recommendations is mentioned.
2022:
January 1: Deadline for the those working in education to be fully vaccinated in order to work
January 7: Verrall signs the advice from 22 December, 2021, annotating in the margins “CV TAG’s concerns, at the time, were about insufficient data on safety of second dose”.
March 16: Cabinet paper presented to the Social Wellbeing Committee with December advice summarised.
March 22: Cabinet agrees to remove vaccine passes and vaccine mandates for some sectors including the education workforce mandate
April: Vaccine passes and mandates including the education workforce mandate removed