Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The Government will release the advice it received before making crucial Covid-19 alert level decisions this month.
Before each alert level decision, Cabinet receives advice from its officials, mainly the Ministry of Health - this advice informs its final decision on whether alert level restrictions should be tightened, held, or relaxed.
During the first wave of Covid, in 2020, that advice was released fairly promptly - with some documents being made available during the actual lockdown, while the bulk were released in early May, about a month and a half after the first lockdown.
No documents have been released from the latest wave, however, leading to frustration among MPs and observers about a lack of transparency.
Written Parliamentary Questions from National's Covid-19 spokesman Chris Bishop have found documents relating to alert level decisions from August, September and October will be proactively released this month.
Responding to Bishop, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the advice received by Cabinet came in the same format as previous alert level decisions, which looked at metrics across eight criteria.
These have been the basis for all alert level decisions thus far.
The first four criteria relate to health.
The first looks at trends in the transmission of the virus; the second looks at capacity and capability of the testing and contact tracing system; the third surveys the effectiveness of self-isolation and border measures; and the fourth scrutinises the ability of the health system to contain an outbreak.
The second lot of criteria look are described as "broader criteria" - these include looking at the effect on the local economy, the ability of people to follow the rules, and the ability to bring a new alert level into operation.
This data release is among the most eagerly awaited data releases in recent times, in no small part because the Government's strategy has come under increasing scrutiny.
Both National and Act labelled the Government's decision to move from alert level 4 to alert level 3 in Auckland an abandonment of the elimination strategy, arguing the Government had clearly not got the outbreak under control in Auckland.
Government advice should go some way to answering this question.
At the time of the decision, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stressed the move was made "on the advice of the director general of health [Ashley Bloomfield]".
Ardern also made no reference to the eight alert level criteria when she announced the alert level shift at her post-Cabinet press conference - something she usually does during alert level conferences.
Comments at the time of the decision from Bloomfield suggested vaccinations had surmounted the previous alert level criteria.
"The difference this time is it's level 3 with high and increasing rates of vaccination, and so it gives us further opportunity to get those vaccination rates up even higher," Bloomfield said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Ardern added that "we haven't had that tool [vaccination] behind us supporting our alert level restrictions before. We do now."
It appears, however, vaccination rates did not surmount the previous eight criteria. Instead, vaccination rates are likely to have made an impact on them. At the time of the alert level change, Auckland's vaccination rate was just shy of 80 per cent of people having their first dose.
