Let's hope politicians of all stripes can agree to limit their urge to politicise the Royal Commission of Inquiry findings about the Covid response. Since ensuring we get properly equipped next time around – having enough PEP gear, hiring sufficient trained medical staff etc – will involve political decisions, some degree of political point scoring probably comes with the territory.

That said, setting priorities to counter future threats could readily become a political minefield. At what precise point in the exit from an elimination strategy for example, should business needs begin to trump public health precautions? The Royal Commission isn’t really sure, either. It just thinks it would be great if everyone agreed to strike a better balance next time.

No doubt, the public will readily tune out if political point scoring starts to dominate the essential planning for what should be a bi-partisan pursuit of the general good. Already the New Zealand public seems unlikely to sign up again voluntarily to another Team of Five Million resistance effort. The full text of the “first phase” report of the Royal Commission (containing 39 recommendations) can be read here. The crunchier recommendations focus on the exit from the elimination strategy.

Pandemic preparation is suddenly a growth business. Australia has just released its own research report into the management of the Covid threat across the Tasman. The Aussie report concedes that next time around, the public is likely to be less trusting, and less compliant with public health measures.

To try and counter that trend, Australia has just earmarked $95 million (over seven years) to protect Australians from the looming threat of bird flu. Australia is also investing $251.7 million in creating an independent Centre of Disease Control to manage pandemic preparedness and better manage the future response, while – deliberately – operating at arms length from government. The hope is that this independence from politicians will inspire greater public confidence in any disease mitigation measures that the new body seeks to promote to counter the next major disease outbreak – whether it be from bird flu, a bio-weapon malfunction, or something else.

Obviously, the public acceptance of prevention measures is crucial to minimising infection and reducing transmission rates. With that in mind, some New Zealand academics have already been calling for a co-ordinated regional approach. In essence, this would involve the details of the next pandemic response being hammered out in advance and managed by Australia, New Zealand and Pacific countries working in unison.

Rear View Mirror Wisdom

In looking back to pinpoint what could be done better, there is always a risk that 20/20 hindsight will discount what was done really, really well – especially during the first year of our Covid response. By going early and hard in a situation where (a) there was no playbook for how to proceed and (b) no vaccines then existed, thousands of lives were saved.

It seems odd for the Royal Commission to complain that “non-health matters took a back seat” at any point. The speedy funding of wage subsidies and support schemes had kept the economy afloat, albeit with serious inflationary effects down the track. Yet the Depression-era levels of unemployment and massive business failures that were initially feared simply did not eventuate.

If the Royal Commission is talking about non-health matters being downplayed during the exit from the elimination strategy well...at the time, there was a legitimate concern that a premature exit could rapidly undo the genuine health gains made beforehand, at such cost. (The Reserve Bank could be blamed far more validly for the harms it has done this year by delaying the exit from its inflation elimination strategy.)

Vaccine dissent

When Covid vaccines did emerge, and despite the clamour of global demand for them, most New Zealanders still got access to vaccine protection relatively quickly. However, as the Royal Commission says, this outreach effort (including the prior explanation of the rare risks posed by the vaccines) could have been done better.

Initially, the lockdowns succeeded in insulating the community from the catastrophic outcomes experienced in many other countries. The breakdown of social cohesion on Covid policy began in earnest with the long Auckland lockdown triggered by the Delta variant outbreak. Paradoxically, the level of social dissent intensified after the vaccines had become available.

Vaccine mandates became a divisive issue. Inevitably so, with hindsight. Basically, the rights of vaccine opponents to bodily autonomy (and to employment on their terms) came up hard against the rights of the wider community to be protected against being infected with a potentially deadly disease by people who were refusing to adopt the available counter-measures.

According to the Royal Commission of Inquiry head Professor Tony Blakely, the lockdowns and the vaccine mandates were too broad, and too harsh. That’s easy to say, but difficult to manage. It remains unclear just how a Goldilocks balance between these polarised positions – not too harsh, but harsh enough, not overly broad, but just broad enough – can be struck in future.

The teaching and medical caring occupations in particular involve close contact with the vulnerable. To mandate, or not to mandate? And how long should that piece of mandate string be, and how should it be unwound?

Somewhat naively, Blakely painted this problem area on RNZ as one that can be resolved by better communication strategies. Ah, the voodoo homeopathy of the Comms specialists – as if, with a few drops of leadership and a tincture of strategy, the whole vaccine mandates issue would dissolve, and disappear. If only. In the real world, those deep divisions are not amenable to science-based negotiation and compromise. Surely, we learned that during Covid and its aftermath.

No doubt, it is “harsh” if people resist vaccines so strongly they lose their jobs over it. Yet by what means in future are the authorities supposed to “balance” that refusal against the majority’s right not to be wilfully exposed to a potentially deadly infection by their workmates? Or by those who are supposedly caring for them?

There is no neat answer acceptable to everyone. Yet one can see why the authorities at the time chose to be guided by “the greater good for the greatest number” principle, at least until vaccination numbers had reached a sufficient level.

Obviously, lockdowns are really bad for business. Vaccine mandates are resisted by a vocal minority. Taken together, that seems to have made lockdowns and vaccine mandates no longer politically unsustainable options, no matter how many lives might be saved by them, or how many public health workers get shielded by them from burnout, because hospitals are not being over-run.

All signs are that the wider public – and the workforce on the public health front lines – will be expected to just suck up the risk, and suffer the losses, next time around. Look how quickly the wearing of masks on public transport or at public gatherings has been discontinued, even though Covid is still extracting its weekly toll in death and sickness.

What happened, you might wonder, to the ancient wisdom that the best public health strategy is also the best strategy for business, too? (Sick people do not tend to be big spenders.) Water under the bridge, though. Plainly, it has been decided that the precautionary approach is not only bad for business, but is an irritating way to live. The majority of the public already appear willing to play the Covid lottery, and hope for the best that it won’t happen to them, or to their loved ones.

That’s the prevailing mindset we’re going to be taking into the arrival of the next pandemic. What could possibly go wrong?

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