Official inquiry – Public Health Expert, University of Otago, New Zealand

Prof Nick Wilson, A/Prof George Thomson, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael Baker*

The Government has acknowledged the need for a formal review of the Covid-19 pandemic response. In this blog we explain how it is now time to announce the process and timetable for such an official inquiry. We note that all sudden mass fatality events with 10+ deaths since 1936 in Aotearoa NZ have resulted in an official inquiry. Ensuring an inquiry has lasting usefulness will depend on the depth and scope of the terms of reference, taking a forward-looking and depoliticised approach. Effective follow-up of recommendations through legislation, active implementation, and enforcement by Government will also be required. (See here a very short video summary of this blog, and here for a longer video.)

Figure 1: Photograph of 440 students at Wellington College to symbolically represent the worst day for deaths from the 1918 influenza pandemic in NZ – a pandemic that was followed by a valuable official inquiry in 1919. Photo by Luke Pilkinton-Ching, University of Otago Continue reading →

Having trouble posting comments?

If you are having trouble seeing a green 'Post comment' button when you are trying to submit a comment, please check to see if you are using Internet Explorer. If so, follow these instructions:

1. Open the browser
2. Press the Alt key on your keyboard and this will make a menu bar at the top appear
3. Click on tools and then select compatibility view settings
4. Remove all ticks from the 3 boxes

This removes the compatibility setting on your browser and should allow you to see the button.

Notes about PHE blog:

· Peer review process: Where a blog post has a single author, then the content is always peer-reviewed by at least one senior academic in public health. This is to help ensure that statements have a reasonable basis in terms of scientific plausibility and to ensure that uncertainty is appropriately acknowledged where statements have speculative aspects. For multi-authored blogs there can also be additional peer-review. Of note is that the PHE blog posts are often well-referenced so that readers can readily check the background science and arguments.

· Competing interests: Where a blog post author has a commercial competing interest then this will be acknowledged in a statement at the end of the blog post.

· Relationship with the parent institution: Any views expressed in these blog posts are those of the author(s) alone and not their parent institution. This is consistent with the meaning of academic freedom under the NZ Education Act 1989 (section 161). Furthermore, in a free society, it is undesirable for universities to vet or otherwise control statements by academic staff.

· Comments posted to this blog: These will usually only be included if they add intellectual content to the discussions and are not abusive etc.

Public Health Expert

Recent Posts

Archives

Tag Archives: Official inquiry

An Official Inquiry into the Covid-19 Pandemic Response – It’s Time and it’s Vital

Having trouble posting comments?

Notes about PHE blog: