Feats, Flops, and Free Lessons From NZ’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Joanna M Manning

Medical Law Review, 2021, vol. 29, issue 3, 468-496

Abstract: Beginning from the first reports of COVID-19 out of China, this article provides a commentary on the actions taken by the Government of New Zealand in terms of nine themes—a national response with an elimination goal, speed, and comprehensiveness of the initial response; an evidence-based, science-led approach, prioritised on protecting lives; effective communication; leadership style which appealed to collective responsibility and attempted to de-politicise the Government’s response to the virus; flexibility of response characterised by ‘learning as you go’; oversight of coercive state powers, including a pragmatic response which attempted to defuse conflict and reserved use of ‘hard power’ to a last resort; deployment of public health interventions, and health system adaptations; the impact on Māori and marginalised communities; and economic protection and stimulus—to identify factors that might help explain why New Zealand’s pandemic response was successful and those which could have been managed better. The partially successful legal challenge brought to the four-and-a half week lockdown, the most stringent in the world, in Borrowdale v Director-General of Health, is also considered.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Elimination goal; Health system adaptations; Judicial review of lawfulness of lockdown; Lessons for other comparable countries; New Zealand Government’s management of pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/medlaw/fwab025 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:medlaw:v:29:y:2021:i:3:p:468-496.

Access Statistics for this article

Medical Law Review is currently edited by Professor Sara Fovargue and Professor Jose Miola

More articles in Medical Law Review from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().