November 30, 2024 • 14 mins
The Government has released Phase One of the Covid inquiry - all 700 pages of it.
Here are some key points:
- There was an issue with focusing on people's health rather than all aspects of their lives.
- Vaccine requirements were too broad and were in place for too long.
- Ardern's "single source of truth" comment was found unhelpful.
Former Director-General of Health Sir Ashley Bloomfield joins with his thoughts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talks'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The government, as you know, has released Phase one of
the COVID inquiry, all seven hundred pages of it. Confession
I haven't read at all, but here are some key points.
There was there was a question around the issue of
whether there was too much focus on people's health as
opposed to extend that interest to all aspects of their lives.
Of course, it's because it did affect all aspects of
(00:31):
our lives, didn't it. The vaccine requirements questions around whether
they were too broad and in place for too long
just inint doing single source of truth comment was found
to be unhelpful. The report aims to advise on future pandemics,
which hopefully will avoid but former Director General Sir Ashley
Bloomfield joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Now, good afternoon, Good afternoon, hey.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thanks so much for your time. Have you have you
read the report?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Well, I've read the summary, which in itself is one
hundred and ten pages. Yeah, so you have had a
good look through that, but not read the fuller report.
And yet how.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Quickly did you want to devour it or was it
something you thought, Oh, how it's out now? I better
over look at it.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well. I came to it, you know, carefully and of
course with an open mind, and you know, a few
initial observations. At a high level, I think the report's
are very well written, it's very accessible, and I think
it's balanced and intended to be helpful, which is what
we want, you know, as you said in your opening
comments here, what we're really interested in is how do
(01:35):
we better prepare and respond to the next pandemic because
there will be another one, And the author's point this out.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And obviously, look, you would have done a lot of
thinking over the past few years about how things went
at the time and also looking back on things. Did
the report or the did it contain anything unexpected for you?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
No, it didn't contain anything unexpected. As I said, I
think it's very balanced, and it does start by rightly
putting New Zealand's response in the international context. You know,
in a sense, this was a natural experiment. Every country
was facing this threat to this pandemic in real time,
and so I think by putting it in the setting
(02:20):
it in the international context, that's a good starting point.
And then by really looking in depths with the benefit
of hind sight, as they say, quite often they take
the opportunity to review and look at all the different
aspects of the response again, but with this lens of thinking,
(02:40):
what is it we might have done differently and what
do we need to learn for next time in hindsight?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And I guess considering the reports summary, are there things
that you've looked back on that you And I don't
mean this from a point of recrimination, because you know
we're writing the manual as we were going, really weren't we,
But what what's the thing that stands out to you
that you think that we could have done differently?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Well, the the thing that stands out for me are
the areas where the decisions were the hardest, and those
are the ones that are the review draws out as
the areas where there was in a sense the most
contention and arguably the most harmed unto some people. And
(03:27):
of course those are the issues around the extent of
lockdowns and their use and sort of depriving people of
freedom movement, as well as closing educational institutions, and as
you mentioned in your opening remarks, the use of mandates
and the question that is really asked about the use
of vaccine mandates is not whether they were appropriate. In fact,
(03:50):
the reviewers conclude they were appropriate to use, and in
fact there were fifty five countries that use vaccine mandates.
But what they are cautious about as the extent to
which they were used. So in a sense, the areas
where where I would be thinking hard and where I
think they've made their strongest recommendations are in those areas
(04:11):
that were the trickiest at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Is it also with regard to the vaccine mandate? Is
it a question of sort of not whether they were
good or bad, as you say, but the question around
the nuance. So, for instance, if somebody couldn't or was
unwilling to take the vaccine, whether there was a way
of balancing that with more regular testing and that sort
of thing where people would say, well, look i'll test
every day. Remember those arguments.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yes, that's right, And I think, of course, at the time,
when you're trying to roll out a vaccine program to
every adult in the country, the ability for the system
to sort of cope with a whole lot of variations
is somewhat limited. But the point they make is, you know,
to look much more broadly, and you know, I was
just reflecting as I read the report. One of the
(04:57):
things that early on the advice was not to use masks,
and that was advice from the WHO, and many countries
didn't use those. It's quite clear to me now that
if there was another pandemic with a respiratory pathogen, that
would be the first place we'd go to. Ye, and
now that there is a history, I guess in New
Zealand of us using masks like this, which there wasn't previously,
(05:20):
unlike many Asian countries where there much more commonplace and
we're pre pandemic, you know, now we could use masks
in a really effective way very early on, and that
would potentially preclude the need for potentially the need for
lockdowns or such rigid lockdowns, or indeed could act as
(05:42):
an alternative perhaps to vaccination.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Five years ago, of course, clearly we were well, we
didn't have the benefit of our experience, and the public
as well. And I would argue that maybe five years
ago the public was more willing to trust. Today, could
you manage the same let's just pretend exactly the same
type of epidemic in terms of its pathology and transmissibility
(06:09):
and all that sort of thing. Would it be harder
to manage the same thing given we have a more
sort of cynical and questioning public these days, I would argue.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I've thought a lot about this, and I've got three
thoughts on this. First of all, it's hard for us
to recall just how fast moving this was in the
early months of twenty twenty and how frightened everybody was.
Now there was a very strong consensus right across the community,
including from businesses, that we should go into a lockdown,
(06:43):
and the polling of the public through that first lockdown,
this is my second point, showed a very high degree
of confidence and trust in that response, over ninety percent
of people, so clearly transcendent political views different demographic groups.
I guess the key point here is it would really
depend to me on the nature of the path and
(07:06):
how frightened people are. And one of the things that
hasn't been diminished is actually, interestingly both in New Zealand globally,
is trust and scientists. Yes, there is a group that
already was skeptical about scientists, but actually scientists remain one
of the most trusted groups, alongside doctors and policemen or
(07:27):
police workers. In New Zealand and that's the same internationally.
So whilst the whilst the pandemic heightened these sort of
apparent divisions around trust and science, and of course the
report points out the rise of mis and disinformation, especially
through social media, and that was a really challenging, challenging
(07:50):
thing to contend with. There is this residual trust in
science by many people. So whilst it's hard to predict
the future, of course, my sense is that if there
was a really big threat to the country, that people
can and overseas would think carefully about taking steps that
would protect both their help and the help of others.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
If one of the major things of a reporter is
to offer us the benefit of hindsight and to examine
everything we did, how useful is it practically speaking? Given
if and when on it? And you say when, which
is mildly terrifying, But of course it is a case
of when it may be completely different in terms of
(08:35):
its contagiousness, transmissibility.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
We may have a virus that was far more lethal,
we may have something I mean, there could be so
many there are so many permutations that could be utterly different.
So how I guess it boils down to the Sorry
it's a long winded way of asking a question, but
does a report like this really just does it just
boil down to some really simple basic lessons that are
(09:02):
transferable no matter what the threat.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
It does. And this is the real strength of this report.
It's got some very well considered and comprehensive recommendations to
the end that are very much designed for us to
think hard about and ensure that we are better prepared
for next time. You know, in a sense, we were
unlucky with COVID. The globe was unlucky, but we were
(09:28):
all so lucky. It could have been worse. You know,
the SARS outbreak in the early two thousands, that was
SARS covariant one. Well, that virus had a fatality rate
of over fifty percent and older people. Now imagine if
we had had you know, this virus, this COVID virus,
had had that level of fatality, it would have been
(09:48):
an even bigger impact. And we don't know what will
happen next time. And this is what I like about report.
It's got some very thoughtful, considered recommendations. That is the
most important outcome really, and that was what it was
designed to do. What can we learn and what should
we'd be doing to make sure we are better prepared
next time.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Who's the most useful, what's the most who's the report for?
Who is it going to be most useful? Is it
for people in positions like yourself, for the director general?
Or are there lessons that the public might be might
be able to take from it?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Well, the recommendations, as they were asked to do, are
targeted to the government and government agencies. However, as the
authors point out, actually the findings and the recommendations are
equally relevant to the wide range of institutions and groups
across the site, including the private sector, of civil society groups,
(10:47):
community groups, and so I think there's merit and everyone
having a bit of a look at the recommendations, But
the actors who are intended to follow up on those
recommendations are the government and government agencies.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Anything you miss about being under the pump every day,
the one PM presses in the nostalgia for the I'm
not going to say the good old days, I mean
that lightheartedly, but is there anything you miss about it?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
There's nothing I miss about it, and I'm sure that
that's the same, you know, for all kiwi's radio. It
was an incredibly challenging, relentless, stressful time and I think
we're all glad we're out the back of it. The
thing that I missed most when I left the ministry
was just the people. And you know, on those days
when my personally was finding it really tough, just because
(11:36):
of the relentlessness, the intensity, the stress of it working
with so many great people, and not just within the
Ministry of Health, but across communities, across the health system,
across the private sector. The media played a really important role,
both in terms of getting messages out but also holding
those in power to account. I certainly felt that when
(11:57):
I had to do a performance review at one o'clock
every day, I never felt I was getting an easy ride,
and neither should I. The role of the media is
to hold up to whold those in power to account,
so I don't miss that. And you know, just the
thing that I think about many days, because I still
get people recognizing me and they'll come up to make,
(12:19):
you know, to say something something I just and mostly
you know, well, I would say ninety nine percent of
the feedback I get from individuals to come and speak
to me as very positive it's constructive. I'm just proud
of what we achieved as a country. And so the
part of the report I encourage people to look at
most and just to keep in mind is the first
part of it, which does put our response in the
(12:43):
context of what other countries were able to achieve, and
that was down to all Peewi's doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Would you have any sort of words of advice to
a future Director general in terms of just dealing with
that public pressure.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
The really important thing for me was to make sure
I was was and was seen to be trustworthy, and
you know that's about being honest, being reliable and being confident.
So I worked pretty hard every day and whilst I
didn't necessarily enjoy each other media stand ups, over three
hundred of them, I think, turning up every day, and
(13:20):
even your colleague Mike Hosking who said he wasn't that
impressed with my performance, the one thing he acknowledged was
that I turned up every time he wanted to interview
me at five to seven on a Thursday morning. So
the role is to be out there, be open, be transparent,
and you know it's okay to say I don't know
or actually this didn't go right. That doesn't undermine trust.
(13:42):
It actually builds trust if you can be honest and
take accountability when things don't go right.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
How's life going now? What's your next challenge?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Look, I've got a really nice role at the moment.
I'm interim chief executive at sr did all with whole
gename sequencing flakes were the testing during the pandemic. So
I'm really enjoying that, my work at the university, and
the thing I'm really looking forward to is in loving
is summer feels like it's here and I'm looking forward
to break the family and friends over the summer, which
(14:11):
I'm sure most cuities are.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Excellent, especially Brilling for I really appreciate your time at
this afternoon, Thanks so much, and enjoy your Christmas.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk z be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talks'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The government, as you know, has released Phase one of
the COVID inquiry, all seven hundred pages of it. Confession
I haven't read at all, but here are some key points.
There was there was a question around the issue of
whether there was too much focus on people's health as
opposed to extend that interest to all aspects of their lives.
Of course, it's because it did affect all aspects of
(00:31):
our lives, didn't it. The vaccine requirements questions around whether
they were too broad and in place for too long
just inint doing single source of truth comment was found
to be unhelpful. The report aims to advise on future pandemics,
which hopefully will avoid but former Director General Sir Ashley
Bloomfield joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Now, good afternoon, Good afternoon, hey.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thanks so much for your time. Have you have you
read the report?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Well, I've read the summary, which in itself is one
hundred and ten pages. Yeah, so you have had a
good look through that, but not read the fuller report.
And yet how.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Quickly did you want to devour it or was it
something you thought, Oh, how it's out now? I better
over look at it.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well. I came to it, you know, carefully and of
course with an open mind, and you know, a few
initial observations. At a high level, I think the report's
are very well written, it's very accessible, and I think
it's balanced and intended to be helpful, which is what
we want, you know, as you said in your opening
comments here, what we're really interested in is how do
(01:35):
we better prepare and respond to the next pandemic because
there will be another one, And the author's point this out.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And obviously, look, you would have done a lot of
thinking over the past few years about how things went
at the time and also looking back on things. Did
the report or the did it contain anything unexpected for you?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
No, it didn't contain anything unexpected. As I said, I
think it's very balanced, and it does start by rightly
putting New Zealand's response in the international context. You know,
in a sense, this was a natural experiment. Every country
was facing this threat to this pandemic in real time,
and so I think by putting it in the setting
(02:20):
it in the international context, that's a good starting point.
And then by really looking in depths with the benefit
of hind sight, as they say, quite often they take
the opportunity to review and look at all the different
aspects of the response again, but with this lens of thinking,
(02:40):
what is it we might have done differently and what
do we need to learn for next time in hindsight?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And I guess considering the reports summary, are there things
that you've looked back on that you And I don't
mean this from a point of recrimination, because you know
we're writing the manual as we were going, really weren't we,
But what what's the thing that stands out to you
that you think that we could have done differently?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Well, the the thing that stands out for me are
the areas where the decisions were the hardest, and those
are the ones that are the review draws out as
the areas where there was in a sense the most
contention and arguably the most harmed unto some people. And
(03:27):
of course those are the issues around the extent of
lockdowns and their use and sort of depriving people of
freedom movement, as well as closing educational institutions, and as
you mentioned in your opening remarks, the use of mandates
and the question that is really asked about the use
of vaccine mandates is not whether they were appropriate. In fact,
(03:50):
the reviewers conclude they were appropriate to use, and in
fact there were fifty five countries that use vaccine mandates.
But what they are cautious about as the extent to
which they were used. So in a sense, the areas
where where I would be thinking hard and where I
think they've made their strongest recommendations are in those areas
(04:11):
that were the trickiest at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Is it also with regard to the vaccine mandate? Is
it a question of sort of not whether they were
good or bad, as you say, but the question around
the nuance. So, for instance, if somebody couldn't or was
unwilling to take the vaccine, whether there was a way
of balancing that with more regular testing and that sort
of thing where people would say, well, look i'll test
every day. Remember those arguments.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yes, that's right, And I think, of course, at the time,
when you're trying to roll out a vaccine program to
every adult in the country, the ability for the system
to sort of cope with a whole lot of variations
is somewhat limited. But the point they make is, you know,
to look much more broadly, and you know, I was
just reflecting as I read the report. One of the
(04:57):
things that early on the advice was not to use masks,
and that was advice from the WHO, and many countries
didn't use those. It's quite clear to me now that
if there was another pandemic with a respiratory pathogen, that
would be the first place we'd go to. Ye, and
now that there is a history, I guess in New
Zealand of us using masks like this, which there wasn't previously,
(05:20):
unlike many Asian countries where there much more commonplace and
we're pre pandemic, you know, now we could use masks
in a really effective way very early on, and that
would potentially preclude the need for potentially the need for
lockdowns or such rigid lockdowns, or indeed could act as
(05:42):
an alternative perhaps to vaccination.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Five years ago, of course, clearly we were well, we
didn't have the benefit of our experience, and the public
as well. And I would argue that maybe five years
ago the public was more willing to trust. Today, could
you manage the same let's just pretend exactly the same
type of epidemic in terms of its pathology and transmissibility
(06:09):
and all that sort of thing. Would it be harder
to manage the same thing given we have a more
sort of cynical and questioning public these days, I would argue.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I've thought a lot about this, and I've got three
thoughts on this. First of all, it's hard for us
to recall just how fast moving this was in the
early months of twenty twenty and how frightened everybody was.
Now there was a very strong consensus right across the community,
including from businesses, that we should go into a lockdown,
(06:43):
and the polling of the public through that first lockdown,
this is my second point, showed a very high degree
of confidence and trust in that response, over ninety percent
of people, so clearly transcendent political views different demographic groups.
I guess the key point here is it would really
depend to me on the nature of the path and
(07:06):
how frightened people are. And one of the things that
hasn't been diminished is actually, interestingly both in New Zealand globally,
is trust and scientists. Yes, there is a group that
already was skeptical about scientists, but actually scientists remain one
of the most trusted groups, alongside doctors and policemen or
(07:27):
police workers. In New Zealand and that's the same internationally.
So whilst the whilst the pandemic heightened these sort of
apparent divisions around trust and science, and of course the
report points out the rise of mis and disinformation, especially
through social media, and that was a really challenging, challenging
(07:50):
thing to contend with. There is this residual trust in
science by many people. So whilst it's hard to predict
the future, of course, my sense is that if there
was a really big threat to the country, that people
can and overseas would think carefully about taking steps that
would protect both their help and the help of others.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
If one of the major things of a reporter is
to offer us the benefit of hindsight and to examine
everything we did, how useful is it practically speaking? Given
if and when on it? And you say when, which
is mildly terrifying, But of course it is a case
of when it may be completely different in terms of
(08:35):
its contagiousness, transmissibility.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
We may have a virus that was far more lethal,
we may have something I mean, there could be so
many there are so many permutations that could be utterly different.
So how I guess it boils down to the Sorry
it's a long winded way of asking a question, but
does a report like this really just does it just
boil down to some really simple basic lessons that are
(09:02):
transferable no matter what the threat.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
It does. And this is the real strength of this report.
It's got some very well considered and comprehensive recommendations to
the end that are very much designed for us to
think hard about and ensure that we are better prepared
for next time. You know, in a sense, we were
unlucky with COVID. The globe was unlucky, but we were
(09:28):
all so lucky. It could have been worse. You know,
the SARS outbreak in the early two thousands, that was
SARS covariant one. Well, that virus had a fatality rate
of over fifty percent and older people. Now imagine if
we had had you know, this virus, this COVID virus,
had had that level of fatality, it would have been
(09:48):
an even bigger impact. And we don't know what will
happen next time. And this is what I like about report.
It's got some very thoughtful, considered recommendations. That is the
most important outcome really, and that was what it was
designed to do. What can we learn and what should
we'd be doing to make sure we are better prepared
next time.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Who's the most useful, what's the most who's the report for?
Who is it going to be most useful? Is it
for people in positions like yourself, for the director general?
Or are there lessons that the public might be might
be able to take from it?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Well, the recommendations, as they were asked to do, are
targeted to the government and government agencies. However, as the
authors point out, actually the findings and the recommendations are
equally relevant to the wide range of institutions and groups
across the site, including the private sector, of civil society groups,
(10:47):
community groups, and so I think there's merit and everyone
having a bit of a look at the recommendations, But
the actors who are intended to follow up on those
recommendations are the government and government agencies.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Anything you miss about being under the pump every day,
the one PM presses in the nostalgia for the I'm
not going to say the good old days, I mean
that lightheartedly, but is there anything you miss about it?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
There's nothing I miss about it, and I'm sure that
that's the same, you know, for all kiwi's radio. It
was an incredibly challenging, relentless, stressful time and I think
we're all glad we're out the back of it. The
thing that I missed most when I left the ministry
was just the people. And you know, on those days
when my personally was finding it really tough, just because
(11:36):
of the relentlessness, the intensity, the stress of it working
with so many great people, and not just within the
Ministry of Health, but across communities, across the health system,
across the private sector. The media played a really important role,
both in terms of getting messages out but also holding
those in power to account. I certainly felt that when
(11:57):
I had to do a performance review at one o'clock
every day, I never felt I was getting an easy ride,
and neither should I. The role of the media is
to hold up to whold those in power to account,
so I don't miss that. And you know, just the
thing that I think about many days, because I still
get people recognizing me and they'll come up to make,
(12:19):
you know, to say something something I just and mostly
you know, well, I would say ninety nine percent of
the feedback I get from individuals to come and speak
to me as very positive it's constructive. I'm just proud
of what we achieved as a country. And so the
part of the report I encourage people to look at
most and just to keep in mind is the first
part of it, which does put our response in the
(12:43):
context of what other countries were able to achieve, and
that was down to all Peewi's doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Would you have any sort of words of advice to
a future Director general in terms of just dealing with
that public pressure.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
The really important thing for me was to make sure
I was was and was seen to be trustworthy, and
you know that's about being honest, being reliable and being confident.
So I worked pretty hard every day and whilst I
didn't necessarily enjoy each other media stand ups, over three
hundred of them, I think, turning up every day, and
(13:20):
even your colleague Mike Hosking who said he wasn't that
impressed with my performance, the one thing he acknowledged was
that I turned up every time he wanted to interview
me at five to seven on a Thursday morning. So
the role is to be out there, be open, be transparent,
and you know it's okay to say I don't know
or actually this didn't go right. That doesn't undermine trust.
(13:42):
It actually builds trust if you can be honest and
take accountability when things don't go right.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
How's life going now? What's your next challenge?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Look, I've got a really nice role at the moment.
I'm interim chief executive at sr did all with whole
gename sequencing flakes were the testing during the pandemic. So
I'm really enjoying that, my work at the university, and
the thing I'm really looking forward to is in loving
is summer feels like it's here and I'm looking forward
to break the family and friends over the summer, which
(14:11):
I'm sure most cuities are.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Excellent, especially Brilling for I really appreciate your time at
this afternoon, Thanks so much, and enjoy your Christmas.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk z be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.