Official Information Act Request and Preservation Notice — COVID-19 Evidential Thresholds, Testing, Mandates and Consequential Harm

I make this request under the Official Information Act 1982. It concerns the evidence, statutory thresholds and recorded consequences associated with New Zealand’s COVID-19 emergency measures.

This is a request for existing information. I am not asking the agencies to create a new opinion or conduct a new causation assessment.

Please preserve all responsive records until this request, including any Ombudsman review, is finally determined.

Please treat every numbered part as severable. Where another agency holds the information, transfer that part under section 14 of the OIA and identify the agency and transfer date. Please do not merely refer me elsewhere.

Relevant records include final briefings, materially different drafts, recommendations, scientific papers actually relied upon, datasets, modelling, risk assessments, meeting minutes, decision sheets, consultation records, attachments and annexures.

A. ORIGINAL EVIDENTIAL AND STATUTORY THRESHOLD

1. Provide the signed written recommendation of the Director-General of Health, together with every attachment and evidential document supplied with it, considered before the Epidemic Preparedness (COVID-19) Notice 2020, Notice 2020-go1368, was issued.
2. Provide the corresponding written recommendation, supporting evidence, approval and decision record for every renewal of that Epidemic Notice.

Provide the final evidence and advice supplied to the Director-General, Minister of Health, Prime Minister or Cabinet concerning:

a. making novel coronavirus/COVID-19 notifiable and quarantinable;

b. the likelihood of community transmission as at March 2020;

c. anticipated infection, hospitalisation, intensive-care and mortality levels;

d. the reliability and limitations of the available case and mortality data;

e. the availability or absence of effective treatment; and

f. the move to Alert Levels 3 and 4 in March 2020.

1. For each decision, identify the date on which the evidence became available, who supplied it, who received it and whether it was available before or after the relevant decision.

B. MEANING OF “PANDEMIC” AND THE LEGAL THRESHOLD

Provide all final Ministry or DPMC advice produced between 1 January and 30 June 2020 defining or distinguishing:

a. pandemic;

b. epidemic;

c. Public Health Emergency of International Concern;

d. outbreak;

e. community transmission; and

f. risk of outbreak or spread.

1. Provide any advice comparing WHO terminology or definitions with the statutory thresholds contained in the Epidemic Preparedness Act 2006, Health Act 1956 and COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020.
2. Provide any records considering whether the WHO’s descriptions or definitions of “pandemic” had changed, whether disease severity was a necessary component, and what legal significance New Zealand attributed to the WHO’s characterisation of COVID-19 as a pandemic.

C. NOTICE 2022-sl4494

For the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Authorisation of COVID-19 Orders) Notice 2022, provide:

a. all final advice and evidence placed before the Prime Minister;

b. the epidemiological and public-health risk assessment;

c. the signed decision and approval record;

d. the Director-General’s advice;

e. the necessity, proportionality and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessments;

f. consultation records required by the legislation;

g. advice explaining why the authorisation was limited to self-isolation, point-of-care tests and masks in health-service premises; and

h. monitoring and review records leading to its expiry on 20 January 2023.

D. COMPULSORY OR CONSEQUENCE-BACKED TESTING

Provide a schedule of every COVID-19 Order that required testing or imposed a legal, employment, travel, isolation or access consequence for refusing testing. For each Order, identify:

a. the affected class of people;

b. the decision-maker;

c. the statutory provision;

d. commencement and revocation dates;

e. consequences of refusal; and

f. exemption, review and appeal mechanisms.

1. Provide the final clinical evidence, validation material and risk assessments relied upon for PCR, LAMP, antigen and nasal, nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal sampling.
2. Provide the advice concerning informed consent, the right to refuse medical treatment, bodily integrity, available alternative specimens and whether employment or other consequences amounted to coercion.
3. Provide all national safety guidance, contraindications, training requirements and serious-event reporting procedures for nasal, nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal COVID-19 sampling.

E. VACCINATION ORDERS AND EMPLOYMENT CONSEQUENCES

1. Provide a schedule of every occupational Vaccinations Order and material amendment, identifying the responsible Minister, affected workers, commencement date, removal date, exemptions and enforcement consequences.
2. For the original April 2021 Order and each material expansion through December 2021, provide:

a. the final advice supplied to the responsible Minister;

b. the evidence concerning protection against infection and transmission actually relied upon;

c. advice concerning waning effectiveness and later variants;

d. the necessity and proportionality assessment;

e. New Zealand Bill of Rights Act advice, including the right to refuse medical treatment;

f. alternatives to excluding unvaccinated workers;

g. predicted employment, income, staffing and service-delivery consequences; and

h. the monitoring framework intended to determine whether the mandate remained justified.

1. Provide all aggregate information held concerning workers who were stood down, suspended, dismissed, redeployed or placed on unpaid leave because of government or employer vaccination requirements.
2. Provide any estimates or monitoring of resulting lost earnings, unemployment, benefit reliance, housing or food insecurity, workforce shortages and interruption of public services.
3. Provide monthly aggregate figures for medical and significant-service-disruption exemption applications, approvals and refusals, broken down by sector and stated reason. No personal identities are sought.

F. TREATMENT OR MEDICINES AFFECTED BY VACCINATION OR TESTING STATUS

1. Provide every national or sector-wide policy, direction or clinical guidance in force between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2022 that permitted, required or prohibited vaccination or testing status from being used when determining access to:

a. prescription medicines or COVID-19 treatments;

b. elective surgery;

c. specialist treatment;

d. rehabilitation or ACC-funded treatment;

e. disability support;

f. aged residential care; or

g. in-person healthcare.

1. Provide aggregate numbers of recorded complaints or incidents involving treatment, medication or rehabilitation being refused, delayed or altered because of vaccination or testing status, together with de-identified final investigation outcomes.
2. Identify who authorised each policy and provide the associated clinical, ethical, discrimination and informed-consent assessments.

G. RECORDED HARM FROM COVID-19 SAMPLING

1. Provide aggregate information held centrally concerning complaints, injuries, serious adverse events, emergency-department presentations, hospitalisations or deaths recorded as caused or suspected to have been caused by nasal, nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal COVID-19 sampling.

Please break the information down, where held, by year, sample type, injury category and seriousness.

1. Provide de-identified serious-event investigation reports and any resulting changes to testing procedures.

I am not asking the Ministry to make a new clinical causation determination. If this information is not centrally coded, identify the relevant systems and custodians and transfer the appropriate parts to Health New Zealand, ACC or HDC.

H. ACCOUNTABILITY AND ADMINISTRATION

1. Identify the name and official position of each person who recommended, authorised or signed the decisions addressed above.
2. Provide the relevant declared-interest records for technical advisers and decision-making groups, including recorded financial or professional relationships with vaccine, testing or pharmaceutical suppliers.
3. Supply records electronically in searchable PDF form and tables in CSV or XLSX format.
4. For information withheld, provide a document schedule recording the date, title, author, recipients and specific OIA ground relied upon. Address the countervailing public interest separately for every section 9 withholding ground.
5. Release undisputed material without waiting for the entire request to be completed.
6. Before considering substantial collation, charging, extension or refusal, please consult me in writing about practical refinement. I require all clarification and correspondence in writing rather than by telephone.

This request concerns matters of exceptional public importance, including the exercise of emergency powers, bodily autonomy, employment and income losses, access to healthcare, and the Royal Commission’s findings that important employment consequences were not adequately assessed or systematically monitored.

Please acknowledge receipt and provide the statutory due date.

Kind regards,

Tracy Lynch