They were worried about the risk of myocarditis in under-18-year-olds from two jabs. They were worried enough that they thought it was a bad idea for the Government to demand kids that young get a second jab for permission to go to work.
Hardly any of us listened when our conspiracy theorist friends and family tried to convince us the Government knew the risks but wasn’t telling us. Turns out, in at least one instance, they were right.
In January 2022, the decision was made – despite the health risks – to force kids to get two jabs before they would be allowed to do basic work like stocking supermarket shelves.
Why the Government made that call and didn’t tell parents still isn’t completely clear.
Chris Hipkins and Ayesha Verrall – who were health ministers at the time – believe they never got the advice telling them it wasn’t safe. Which is true.
The document explicitly advising against mandating the second jab never reached them.
But that doesn’t mean they didn’t know. On another document, Verrall noted in the margins that there were safety concerns about the second jab. A few weeks later Cabinet decided to force the mandate on kids anyway.
A generous explanation is that Verrall and her Cabinet colleagues were making countless decisions every day so they couldn’t be expected to remember every concern.
A less generous take is that it’s sloppy. Mandating a jab on kids is not run-of-the-mill. It’s extreme. Everything should be checked and double-checked, every concern addressed before deciding to do something so unusual.
An even less generous take is that the safety concerns were inconvenient for a Government that had spent months hammering the message that the vaccine was safe, to shut down growing conspiracy theories.
To suddenly have to admit that it was safe for almost everyone, but not absolutely everyone, would have been a hard message to land.
Then there’s the question of why the Ministry of Health failed to make sure that recommendation landed on ministers’ desks before they made a decision potentially affecting the health of kids. Again, too busy, getting sloppy or inconvenient?
We don’t know. We may never know. Ashley Bloomfield isn’t talking about it any more. Why would he? He’s built his reputation, locked-in his knighthood, got himself on the paid speaking circuit and landed a contract as a face for Southern Cross. Why put that at risk talking about bad things that happened in his department during his tenure?
Of course, he should front up and tell us what happened. But then so should a host of other characters who built their reputations and secured their financial futures making decisions about our lives who have subsequently cut and run to green pastures.
They’re not going to say they’re sorry to the people who freaked out about the jab enough to risk losing their jobs and being ostracised by their friends and families.
But maybe the rest of us should. If not an outright apology, at least a small acknowledgement that they weren’t completely imagining things after all.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is the Drive host for Newstalk ZB.