Princeton University gives NZ pandemic response International tick of approval

Social capital has been hailed as one of the reasons behind New Zealand's successful response to the Covid-19 pandemic, new Princeton University research suggests.

Stuff reports were among the bodies of work drawn upon in the Innovations for Successful Societies research centre analysis which examined the response from March to June by Princeton researchers including New Zealand-born Blair Cameron.

The research said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her response team “always acted quickly” throughout the pandemic, opting to make “pivotal decisions that sometimes were based on limited information”.

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In the early stages of the pandemic, government analyst Clinton Watson – who was involved in the establishment of the alert level system – told researchers there was no time to work through lengthy policy processes in standing up the country’s response.

“The process was atypical; standard departmental consultation was cast aside .... we had to make some blunt decisions and just get on with it in order to avoid total calamity,” Watson said.

Strong leaders – both elected politicians and civil servants – played “major roles in the successful communications”.

The research quoted John Walsh, who headed the communications effort, describing Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield as a “remarkable communicator”.

“Governments are big machines, but it is individuals that people look to. In Dr Bloomfield, New Zealanders saw someone they trusted, someone they could relate to, and someone they could have confidence in,” Walsh said.

Ardern’s leadership was also praised, with comments Otago University professor of public health Michael Baker made to the BBC referenced, describing her as a “brilliant communicator and an empathetic leader”.

The research praised Ardern for choosing to elevate the role of scientists during the pandemic.

“She relieved heavily on her science advisers, epidemiologists, and infectious disease experts and deferred to them for policy recommendations,” the research read.

Social capital and effective communication were essential in getting buy-in from everyday New Zealanders, particularly when it came to public health messaging and lockdown compliance.

Because the situation was changing rapidly, the Covid-19 website became a reliable source of facts. On the day New Zealand went from level 2 to 3, traffic on the site jumped from 7000 to 27,000 people in two seconds.

“We never wanted to tell New Zealanders off. We wanted to maintain a firm but empathetic manner all the way through,” Walsh said.

With this in mind, the government shelved a prototype answer bot for the website because the machine lacked human qualities.

“We got really worried about its ability to get the tone wrong and to misread sensitive inquiries. We were worried about its ability to hear and be appropriately empathetic when people were displaying – through their questions – signs of stress. We did not want to get that wrong,” Walsh said.

But while much of the research commended New Zealand’s response, it wasn’t without criticism.

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The research outlined a lack of coordination when it came to resourcing laboratories with Covid-19 testing supplies, as well as holes in the PPE supply chain and the difficulties in standing up a cloud-based platform for contact tracing.

Comments made by epidemiologist Sir David Skegg made to the Epidemic Response Committee, where he described the country’s health system as being “neglected for decades” and suffering from chronic underfunding, were included.

“Public health experts said New Zealand could have been better prepared – for example, by having a better-funded health sector with more intensive care beds and better systems in place to prepare for disease outbreaks,” it read.

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