COVID inquiry backs core response but finds lockdowns, mandates and spending went too far

Summarised by Centrist

The Royal Commission’s second report into New Zealand’s COVID response concluded the government’s decisions made between February 2021 and October 2022, including lockdowns, vaccine approvals and mandates, were broadly justified and consistent with the scientific advice available at the time.

However, it also identifies several failures in the application of those policies.

Officials recognised by October 2021 that the Delta outbreak could no longer be eliminated, yet the city remained locked down for longer than recommended.

This is the strongly worded advice from the New Zealand government’s group of vaccine experts in relation to the under 18s. It wasn’t implemented. pic.twitter.com/r1FpsWVA12

— Thomas Cranmer (@CranmerWrites) January 16, 2023

The Commission found ministers were making decisions without basic data on how many workers were affected by vaccine mandates or how many people lost their jobs.

Memo sent to Bloomfield 9 Dec 2021

Cc: Astrid Koorneef, Maree Roberts and Caroline McElnay

advising against 2x vaccinations for under 18s

Ministers 'don't remember' receiving it

2x vaccinations for under 18s mandated anyway. pic.twitter.com/yTKV6EDyE8

— Paul Allen (@Orb_Royberson) March 10, 2026

Technical advisers had warned that two-dose mandates for 12 to 17-year-olds carried an increased myocarditis risk and suggested a single-dose approach might be safer. The Commission said there is no clear evidence that advice was properly communicated to ministers before mandates were imposed.

Winston Peters said “This inadequate report has proven that we were right to challenge the Labour Government on these issues. They tried to call people ‘cookers’, the ‘river of filth’, and that we were all ‘going down a rabbit hole." https://t.co/ifx3VeUcsQ

— Chris Lynch (@chrislynchmedia) March 10, 2026

The $60 billion COVID Response and Recovery Fund funded 821 programmes, with the Commission finding roughly half were unrelated to the pandemic.

It said the scale and nature of that spending contributed to rising house prices and ongoing cost-of-living pressures, while the level of public debt accumulated during the pandemic has left New Zealand exposed to future economic shocks.

Under Jacinda Arden’s leadership the Labour Government’s Covid response was one of the best in the world in the circumstances, and likely saved over 20,000 lives.

The second Covid inquiry concludes:

"Overall, this report concludes that Aotearoa New Zealand did well in…

— Nick Young (@nickofnz) March 10, 2026

Despite these shortcomings, the report stops short of assigning responsibility to individual decision makers.

The report warns that lockdowns and mandates should be used with extreme caution in future pandemics.

It makes 24 recommendations, including clearer exit strategies for elimination policies, stronger monitoring of mandate impacts and more transparent decision making.

The report notes that by November 2022 about 64,000 adverse reaction reports had been filed from nearly 12.5 million doses. By January 2025, ACC had accepted 1,740 vaccine injury claims, including five fatal cases, while the Coroner confirmed four deaths linked to vaccination.

Public submissions described alleged harms including myocarditis, blood clots and strokes. Many submitters said they felt dismissed when seeking help and criticised the difficulty of navigating ACC and reporting systems.

Read more over atStuffand****Chris Lynch Media

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