Former Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says crucial advice about vaccinating teenagers was delivered too late to influence government decisions, as pandemic restrictions were already being eased.
His comments follow the release of Phase 2 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19 earlier this month, which found that advice on whether teenagers needed two vaccine doses was not presented to ministers at the time.
According to a report by Glenn McConnell of Stuff, the report noted that two pieces of advice were prepared in late 2021 regarding vaccinations for young people. One, dated November 5, 2021, from the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group, highlighted an increased risk of myocarditis in 12- to 17-year-olds after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. It recommended considering a mandate requiring only one dose for that age group.
Hipkins, who led the Covid-19 response at the time and is now Leader of the Labour Party, said he did not receive that advice when it mattered most.
“The Royal Commission specifically found that ministers were not presented with the advice the Minister just claimed they were presented with,” Hipkins said following the report’s release, as quoted by Stuff.
“I think it was a huge oversight that the advice following up on that ... was not given to the minister,” he told Stuff.
He said the Ministry of Health should be held accountable for the omission, which the ministry later acknowledged as a mistake.
However, a Cabinet briefing from March 2022, signed off by Hipkins, did include reference to concerns about a two-dose schedule for teenagers. The document cited advice from December 2021 stating: “A two-dose schedule, particular administered in the shortest possible clinical timeframe, may add unnecessary risk” to teenagers and children, Stuff has reported.
That briefing related to the rollout of the Pfizer paediatric vaccine for children aged five to 11.
Hipkins said the information only reached him and Cabinet when the Government was already scaling back vaccine mandates and other pandemic measures.
“[This briefing] doesn't materially change what Royal Commission found. It doesn't materially change the concern at the time, which is that that advice around myocarditis risk should have been presented to ministers when we were making those decisions around mandates and around requirements,” Hipkins said, Stuff has quoted.
He added that he relied on health officials for medical advice and did not see it as his role to interpret such information.
“I always left advice around vaccine safety and health advice to the relevant health officials at those meetings and I think that was appropriate. I’m not a health practitioner,” he said, as quoted by Stuff.
Hipkins described the failure to present the advice at the right time as “very disappointing,” as reported by Stuff.