Failings in Govt’s response to deadly cluster: Review
Changes made, but questions arise on role luck has played
The scramble to contain one of last year’s deadly Covid clusters was too reactive, lacked clear lines of accountability, and didn’t seek enough expertise outside the health sector, a review has found.
While acknowledging the overall response to Auckland’s August Covid outbreak was “outstanding”, the Rapid Review of the Covid-19 All-ofGovernment Response identified shortcomings and it may have made a substantive difference had they been sorted before the cluster emerged.
Commissioned by the chair of national crisis group ODESC (Officials’ Committee for Domestic and External Security Co-ordination), the review was completed in October but only just released.
The August cluster — which had 179 cases and included three deaths — began after four community cases emerged on August 11, last year, sending Auckland into level 3 for two and a half weeks, level “2.5” for three and a half weeks, and level 2 for two and a half weeks. The rest of the country spent six weeks at level 2.
The Government says the key recommendations have been implemented, but the review — which interviewed 48 officials including dozens of public sector chief executives — has led to questions about the role of luck in keeping our communities Covid-free.
The Government’s rapid response plan to a new community outbreak — which Cabinet had signed off the day before the cluster’s cases first emerged — hadn’t been stress-tested when the outbreak was detected.
The surge capacity of contacttracing had also yet to be stresstested, even though director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield had said more than two months earlier that it would be tested in “the next few weeks”.
The contact-tracing gold standard is to reach 80 per cent of case contacts within 48 hours of a positive case being returned, but only 60 per cent were reached in that timeframe for the August cluster.
“Preparation and planning could have been speeded up and improved between the initial outbreak [in March] and the August resurgence,” said the review, which was led by Security Intelligence Service director Rebecca Kitteridge.
Interviewees told the review that the response was “largely reactive”, and the need to get ahead of risks and issues before they arose was “critical”.
The review highlighted the problems related to travelling in and out of Auckland, and said the Ministry of Health didn’t do enough to seek expertise from outside the health sector and there was no single governance structure tasked with governing the Covid response. It said it was also vital for the Health Ministry to be more open to external advice.
Act leader David Seymour said the review showed how lucky New Zealand had been in avoiding more or bigger outbreaks, despite cases — such as the Jet Park nurse with Covid19 who attended exercise classes — that seemed likely to pass on the virus.
“There seem to be cases and cases where they haven’t spread that much. Maybe the next one will. That’s why we need to be better prepared,” Seymour said.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the key recommendation — a Covid chief executives board in charge of oversight and governance of the response — had been implemented.
And the Covid-19 unit in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) has been refocused and funded to the end of June 2022. It now includes a team that co-ordinates the national response plan, which is governed by ODESC.
The Government has also set up an advisory group, led by business executive Sir Brian Roche and which includes former Air NZ boss Rob Fyfe, to help ensure independent advice to improve the Covid-19 Response.