The COVID Files examines what New Zealand decision-makers knew as vaccination requirements expanded into employment and participation. Drawing on official advice, OIA records and Royal Commission findings, the investigation traces changing evidence on transmission, concerns over mandates for younger people, the impact of Omicron and the consequences for workers who declined vaccination. It asks a central question: as the evidence changed, were compulsory requirements reassessed quickly enough?
Part 1 here
Then Vaccination Changed the Equation
Vaccination moved the relationship between citizen and state into different territory.
What began as a medical intervention intended to protect people against COVID-19 eventually became connected to employment and participation through vaccination requirements and vaccine passes.
That makes an exchange in the European Parliament on 10 October 2022 important, although its meaning needs to be reported precisely.
Pfizer executive Janine Small, President of International Developed Markets, appeared before the European Parliament's Special Committee on COVID-19 .
Dutch MEP Rob Roos asked whether Pfizer's vaccine had been tested for stopping transmission before entering the market.
Small answered that it had not.
That does not mean Pfizer had not tested whether its vaccine worked.
The pivotal clinical trial was principally designed to assess protection against symptomatic COVID-19 and safety, rather than directly establish whether vaccination prevented onward transmission.
Evidence concerning infection and transmission developed separately, including through studies conducted after vaccines entered use.
For New Zealand, however, the policy question is precise.
If vaccination requirements affecting employment or participation were justified partly on protecting other people from infection, what evidence did New Zealand's decision-makers possess about infection and transmission when those requirements were imposed?
Not what was discovered later.
What was known then?
What Officials Knew About Vaccination and Transmission
The original vaccination requirements were introduced in 2021, when officials were attempting to protect vulnerable populations, reduce transmission and enable the country to move away from widespread lockdowns.
The subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned examined the scientific and policy basis for these decisions.
Its investigation established that vaccination requirements rested, at least partly, on the understanding that vaccination could reduce infection and onward transmission, as well as protect individuals against severe illness.
However, by late 2021, evidence was emerging that protection against infection and transmission was waning.
The arrival of Omicron further changed the epidemiological situation.
Vaccination continued to provide protection against severe disease, but its effectiveness against infection and onward transmission was reduced, particularly as immunity waned.
The Commission found that these developments progressively weakened the public-health justification for continuing some vaccination requirements.
This distinction matters because the scientific justification for introducing a requirement is not necessarily the same as the justification for continuing it months later.
A requirement intended partly to prevent transmission must be reassessed when evidence concerning transmission changes.
The documentary question is therefore not simply whether vaccination worked.
It is what protection officials understood vaccination to provide at each decision point, what uncertainty they recognised, and how they reassessed compulsory requirements as the evidence changed.
The Advice Concerning Younger People
One of the most significant findings in the Royal Commission's investigation concerns advice provided by the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group, known as CV-TAG.
On 5 November 2021, the group expressed concern about requiring younger people to receive two vaccine doses for the purposes of mandates.
It suggested consideration be given to allowing younger people who had received one dose to continue working or participating in activities covered by vaccination requirements.
The Ministry of Health's published decision chronology records that the Director-General approved the definition of fully vaccinated on 10 November 2021, noting CV-TAG's views.
A further CV-TAG assessment, dated 9 December 2021, addressed whether the transmission risks associated with COVID-19 among people under 18 justified a compulsory two-dose schedule.
The Royal Commission subsequently reported that it found no evidence that this particular advice had been included in briefings to ministers.
That is a consequential finding.
The issue is not whether the technical advisory group opposed vaccination for younger people. The relevant distinction is between recommending vaccination and determining whether compulsory vaccination was justified for a particular population.
The Commission's finding also needs to be read alongside the Ministry's subsequent disagreement with its interpretation of the ministerial advice.
The Ministry's published chronology identifies a ministerial report dated 22 December 2021 that noted CV-TAG's 5 November advice. It also identifies Cabinet material from February and March 2022 referring to the group's 9 December advice.
The documentary record therefore requires a distinction between the advice provided in November, the further advice produced in December and the information included in particular ministerial briefings.
The central question is whether ministers received the relevant scientific advice before deciding whether compulsory requirements should continue to apply to younger people.
The Government's Own Review of Vaccination Requirements
A further Ministry of Health report, HR20221210, reviewed the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021.
The report recorded that the requirements had originally been introduced to protect workers in high-risk settings and help prevent transmission between those workers and vulnerable people.
It also acknowledged that vaccination requirements limited rights affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, including the right to refuse medical treatment.
The Ministry recognised that those limitations required continuing assessment to establish whether they remained reasonable, justified and proportionate as circumstances changed.
This provides an important documentary distinction.
The government was not simply exercising a permanent authority to require vaccination once the original order had been introduced.
Officials recognised that the continuing justification for the requirements depended on the prevailing circumstances.
The relevant evidence included the risk of infection and transmission, the protection provided by vaccination, the vulnerability of affected populations and the availability of alternative measures.
The report therefore provides a basis for examining whether the government continued to apply restrictions after the circumstances supporting their introduction had materially changed.
It also establishes that the need for proportionality was recognised within the government's own decision-making process.
What Happened When Omicron Arrived?
The Royal Commission identified the arrival of Omicron as an important turning point.
By early 2022, widespread community transmission, changing immunity and the reduced effectiveness of vaccination against infection and onward transmission had altered the justification for some compulsory requirements.
On 21 March 2022, Cabinet agreed to remove most government vaccination mandates, effective from 4 April.
However, requirements remained for some occupations, including parts of the health and disability sector.
The Royal Commission found that the case for retaining mandates had become more finely balanced.
It also recorded that officials and ministers considered the continuing risks faced by vulnerable people and workers in particular settings.
The important question is how those competing considerations were weighed.
For occupations involving vulnerable patients, officials continued to consider the protective benefits of vaccination and the potential consequences of transmission.
For other settings, the case for retaining compulsory requirements had weakened.
The Commission subsequently concluded that some vaccination requirements were applied too broadly or continued for too long.
That conclusion was based on its retrospective examination of the evidence, decisions and consequences.
It does not establish that every vaccination requirement was unjustified when introduced.
It does establish that the timing, scope and continuation of those requirements are subjects for detailed documentary examination.
Who Counted the Other Side?
Perhaps the most revealing question in the OIA concerns what happened to people who did not comply.
The requester sought aggregate information about workers stood down, suspended, dismissed, redeployed or placed on unpaid leave because of vaccination requirements.
It also sought information about lost earnings, unemployment, benefit reliance, housing and food insecurity, workforce shortages and interruption to public services.
The Ministry refused this part of the request under section 18(g)(i) of the Official Information Act.
It stated that the requested information was not held by the Ministry and that there were no grounds for believing it was held by another agency subject to the Act.
That is a significant response, but its meaning must be precise.
It does not establish that nobody measured those consequences.
Other agencies, employers, sector organisations or researchers may hold relevant information. The Ministry's response also does not establish what information may exist in individual employment or welfare records.
The Royal Commission's subsequent investigation provides additional evidence concerning the consequences of vaccination requirements.
It found that vaccination requirements had significant negative social and employment impacts for some people who declined vaccination, including consequences for employment, earnings and trust in government.
The Commission also identified shortcomings in the systematic monitoring of those consequences.
It observed that the absence of comprehensive monitoring made it difficult to establish the full extent of the impacts and whether all of them had been anticipated.
This is an important development in the evidential record.
The Ministry's OIA response establishes what information it said it held.
The Royal Commission's investigation provides a broader assessment of the social and employment consequences, drawing on material beyond the Ministry's response.
Together, these records raise a specific accountability question.
Government counted cases. Government counted vaccinations. Government counted hospitalisations. Vaccination coverage was tracked across communities.
Who counted the people who experienced employment, income or other consequences because of the policy?
If vaccination requirements prevented illness and deaths, those benefits belong on the ledger.
If the same policies cost people employment, income or participation in society, those consequences belong there too.
A complete proportionality assessment requires examining both.
The Commission's findings establish that those wider consequences were material and that their monitoring was incomplete.
The remaining documentary task is to identify the information collected by individual government agencies and employers, and establish how that information was considered when decisions were made to continue or remove requirements.
Were Alternatives Considered?
The Royal Commission also examined whether alternatives to compulsory vaccination had been sufficiently considered.
Regular testing was one possible alternative for workers in some mandated occupations.
The Commission recorded that officials and ministers explored testing as an alternative to vaccination requirements for Police and Defence Force personnel but ultimately decided not to proceed with that approach.
The existence of an alternative does not automatically establish that it would have provided equivalent protection in every setting.
Testing has limitations, including the possibility of infection developing between tests, while vaccination may provide benefits beyond reducing transmission.
Nevertheless, the consideration of alternatives is directly relevant to proportionality.
Where a policy restricts employment or the right to refuse medical treatment, the decision-making record should establish why less restrictive measures were considered insufficient for the particular public-health objective.
The Royal Commission's findings provide a basis for examining whether that assessment was consistently undertaken across different occupations and settings.
The Healthcare Complaints That Were Recorded
The Health and Disability Commissioner's published records provide further evidence concerning the consequences of the COVID-19 response.
In the 2021/22 reporting year, the Commissioner received 879 COVID-19-related complaints.
Of those complaints, 52 percent concerned vaccine-related issues, 25 percent concerned COVID-19 policies, 18 percent concerned the impact of COVID-19 on the health system, and 5 percent concerned testing issues.
In 2022/23, the Commissioner received 410 COVID-19-related complaints.
Approximately 33 percent concerned the impact of COVID-19 on the health and disability system, including delayed or restricted access to care and staffing problems.
A further 28 percent concerned vaccine-related issues, including reported adverse reactions and informed consent.
Another 23 percent concerned COVID-19 policies and procedures, including visitor restrictions, access to support people and infection-control policies.
These figures establish that concerns about healthcare access, vaccination, testing and the operation of COVID-19 policies were formally recorded.
They do not establish that every complaint was substantiated.
Nor do they establish how many patients were denied healthcare specifically because of vaccination or testing status.
The figures also cannot be used to determine the number of injuries caused by COVID-19 testing.
Nevertheless, they identify a body of recorded complaints that can be examined against the Ministry's OIA response.
The next question is whether the Commissioner can identify the complaints specifically involving vaccination or testing status, their outcomes and any resulting changes to clinical practice or government policy.
The specific response to the transferred portion of OIA H2026086129 remains outstanding.
Part 2 ends here. Part 3 begins with “What Happened When Restrictions Were Removed?” and includes the Epidemic Notice renewals, advisers' declared interests, the Royal Commission's findings, the conclusion and the full source list.