The report, now several months old, was released by Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins today along with a funding announcement of almost $3 billion to pay for testing, contact tracing, and supplies of personal protective equipment and to keep the managed isolation and quarantine system going until 2022.
One of the criticisms in the report was that the Ministry of Health was not open to external advice, and had sometimes given inadequate briefings to ministers before Cabinet decisions.
That had meant points of view raised by other government agencies or the private sector – including economic and social ramifications – were neglected.
"While this may have been understandable in the first weeks of the response, it should not be continuing eight months into an issue as we are currently facing," the report said.
Hipkins said there were instances when the advice to ministers had not always been as robust as it should, but the ministry was working with other agencies more.
Hipkins acknowledged some of the criticisms of the response were valid, but defended Bloomfield.
"I've found he has always been very open to criticism and feedback and where problems have been identified, he's been willing to take those on. He's been an asset to the Covid-19 response."
He said overall, a lot had been learned from the August outbreak.
"I'm confident that system is now operating much more the way it should."
Hipkins also announced changes to the management of the response in the wake of the review, including a Covid Response unit for overall coordination, the Health Ministry to lead the health response, and a unit of Government department chief executives to manage the border response.
However, National Party Covid-19 spokesman Chris Bishop said there was plenty of cause for concern in the report, and questioned why the Government had not released it earlier given its importance.
"The confused communication and lack of accountability that plagued our border response is unacceptable. The second outbreak that plunged Auckland back into level 3 and the rest of the country into level 2 was estimated to cost the economy $440 million a week."
He said it showed there was a need for a dedicated border agency to run the response at the borders and in managed isolation centres.
The report's authors acknowledged New Zealand was in a very sound position overall from its response, and that the two instances of community outbreak so far had been quickly brought back under control.
However, it said ensuring that continued depended on strong systems and the ability to learn from errors.
The report recommended a clear plan for testing under various scenarios: from no community transmission to outbreaks, the border, the general community, to hospital admissions and staff, sewage surveillance (such as at aged care facilities), correctional facilities, self-testing and different types of testing platform.
And it recommended New Zealand start using other forms of testing – such as saliva testing – to help boost public willingness to take a Covid test, rather than the uncomfortable nasopharyngeal swab.
"While sensitivity of saliva testing may be slightly less than the current method, the ability to test more frequently and with greater acceptance, may far outweigh that."
In its response, the Government noted swabs were still recommended by the Ministry of Health because New Zealand could not risk missing any positive cases, but it was working on a saliva test that could be effective and that could be available in early 2021.
The report also said more support was needed for Auckland public health services to ensure they could scale up quickly enough to address a community outbreak as it was the most likely centre for one.
It called for a comprehensive plan setting out the options that would face New Zealand over the next few years, and for public input into that plan.
