Sweeping vaccine mandate

Businesses will have the unprecedented power to sack staff if they refuse to be vaccinated against Covid-19, under sweeping new requirements that will affect almost half of the nation’s work force.

The new mandate comes as the Government prepares to announce changes today to the controversial managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system, shortening stays for fully vaccinated returnees within a matter of weeks.

The changes are part of a broader effort to incentivise people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as the Delta variant proves impossible to eliminate. But some experts warned that new requirements to be vaccinated could backfire.

‘‘International evidence for the effectiveness of vaccination mandates is mixed,’’ said Professor Nikki Turner, a GP and medical director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC).

‘‘If they are poorly directly, implemented in isolation, or without supportive community approaches in place, they are at risk of backfiring by polarising communities, creating entrenched attitudes and potentially marginalising further.’’

To succeed, the campaign needed ‘‘wraparound’’ support for vaccine-hesitant communities, more education and to build trust with those who had concerns about immunisation, she said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday announced all ‘‘close proximity’’ businesses – including restaurants, cafes and gyms – requiring vaccine certification for their customers will have to ensure their employees are also vaccinated.

‘‘We want workplaces open, customers safe and workers safe too,’’ Ardern said yesterday, adding that businesses big and small had asked for a clear, legal framework.

Staff who refuse vaccination will be given a four-week period to get vaccinated before their employment can be terminated.

A person’s vaccination status will become increasingly relevant to their daily lives under the Government’s proposed ‘‘traffic light system’’, which will replace the alert-level system when each district health board reaches 90 per cent vaccination levels.

The new rules will mean that about 40 per cent of the country’s workers will be subject to a vaccine mandate, including the health and education staff already announced, Ardern said.

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood said the new rules would balance public health concerns and the ‘‘suite of rights that are in place here’’.

The Government would also legislate to create a ‘‘simplified risk assessment’’ process that will allow employers who don’t fall under a mandate to decide whether they will require vaccination for any of their workers.

‘‘We will be working to make it as clear and as simple as possible about when it is reasonable for an employer to require vaccination as a condition of employment,’’ he said.

Under the new traffic light system, the ‘‘orange light’’ setting would allow businesses to operate without restrictions on capacity or social distancing if they agree to require customers to prove they have been vaccinated through the vaccine certification system the Government is developing.

Hospitality businesses not using the certification system will not be able to open, but can operate for contactless transactions.

Restaurant Association chief executive Marisa Bidois said the mandate was a positive step to ensuring safe and healthy workplaces, and would provide legal protection for employers. ‘‘Feedback has shown some concerns around enforcing a policy that could make employers liable for discrimination on the basis of vaccination status,’’ she said.

National Party leader Judith Collins said the Government should have started work on vaccine certification sooner.

Dr Andrew Chen, a research fellow at Auckland University, said vaccine certificates were just one weapon in New Zealand’s armoury against the virus.

Today the Government is expected to make some decisions on the immediate future of the country’s managed isolation and quarantine facilities, or MIQ. And not before time. Delta has already rendered the system – at least partly – little more than an economically damaging sinkhole for taxpayer cash and resources. That’s not to mention the profound misery it has created for many.

The announcement will come hot on the heels of yesterday’s announcement, mandating the Covid19 vaccine for any worker at a business that requires a vaccine certificate at entry.

This argument was made on the basis that vaccines are crucial to public safety. Yet, to date, there has been no recognition of vaccination status at the border.

Let’s take a minute to back track. Way back on 9 April 2020, MIQ started up at a few hotels after New Zealand closed its borders to all but citizens and residents.

As New Zealand’s suppression strategy morphed quickly and seamlessly into an elimination strategy, the MIQ system evolved into the front line defence in the fight against Covid-19.

But all that will have to change.

Covid-19 is here and it is staying. The Government’s plan to relax restrictions once vaccination rates hit 90 per cent already assume a level of Covid floating around New Zealand.

There are precious few positive cases coming over the border and barely any cases are fully vaccinated people. Yesterday there were 79 new Covid cases in Auckland and only one who came in through MIQ.

All that leaves MIQ in a limbo land. The complication is that Auckland and Waikato are currently the only areas locked down. And until the traffic light system comes in, the

Government wants that to remain the case. So will most voters especially given that flare-ups around the country will mean level 3 lockdowns. So MIQ has to be calibrated differently for people who wish to stay in Auckland compared to those who want to go further south – for the time being at least. But the indications given by the minister for Covid-19 response, Chris Hipkins, are that the Government is considering only shorter stays at the moment.

This is surely madness. If a person is double vaccinated, and coming through MIQ, they have a greater chance of catching Covid once they get out of MIQ than they have bringing it through the border. At a bare minimum, fully vaccinated people should be able to self-isolate in Auckland without going through MIQ.

Keeping non-vaccinated people in MIQ is justifiable for the time being – and pre-departure tests should weed out those that have Covid.

There are some who, still with an elimination frame of mind, fret about the possibility of new chains of transmission being started. Every country that has opened up has had this happen. When the vaccine target is reached and the traffic light system commences, that will be happening in New Zealand too. It will happen. It is not a matter of if, but when.