Summarised by Centrist
Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden asked officials what could be done after the COVID Royal Commission made an incorrect finding about vaccine advice for under-18s.
The commission said the December 2021 CV TAG advice warning against requiring two Pfizer doses for 12- to 17-year-olds was “not provided to Ministers”. Health officials now say that finding is “incorrect”, because the advice was included in a Cabinet paper considered in March 2022.
Officials advised that the most feasible response was not a new inquiry, but for the Government to address the mistake in its formal response to the commission’s report. That could include a public acknowledgement that the advice was delayed and “not clearly communicated to the public in a timely way”.
Health Minister Simeon Brown has since told the Ministry of Health that vaccine advice should be given to ministers and made public. He said the public needs confidence that vaccine risks and benefits are “weighed honestly and communicated openly”, and that confidence can be undermined by any perception that safety concerns were “withheld or inadequately communicated”.
The issue raises questions about how vaccine safety advice was handled, when ministers received it, why the public was not clearly told about myocarditis concerns for young people, and how a Royal Commission reached a conclusion officials now say was wrong.
Editor’s note: The Herald’s report overlaps with Centrist’s recent COVID vaccine coverage, though it focuses on a separate part of the record.
The shared issue is whether ministers, officials and the public received clear and timely information about known myocarditis risks when decisions were made.
Officials are now reported to have advised that the government could acknowledge the advice was delayed and “not clearly communicated to the public in a timely way”.
That reinforces Centrist’s core question: when official findings are wrong or records are incomplete, why does correction take so long?
Read more over at The NZ Herald (paywalled)
