About this report Mō tēnei pūrongo

We asked the public to share their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic – and their views on how Aotearoa New Zealand can prepare for any future pandemics.

In total, 12,928 individual people, whānau (families) and organisations chose to share their experiences with us, raising over 1,200 different topics and making over 133,000 points.

These wide-ranging experiences, both positive and negative, demonstrated the significant impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on individuals and their families, communities, businesses and other organisations, and our nation overall.

The public submissions process represented an important aspect of our evidence-gathering process, and the results have provided rich insights into the key issues from the COVID-19 pandemic that remain top of mind for people.

The summary of public feedback in this report is split into six main sections, which each contain a range of experiences and views from the most frequently raised topics, including:
 

 
You’ll see a range of views presented in each section. We’ve included short quotes in each section to help show some of the different perspectives we received on each issue, along with some longer pandemic stories at the beginning of the report to highlight particular experiences in more detail.

Due to the high levels of public feedback the Inquiry received on the following topics: lockdowns, restrictions on movement and gatherings, managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ), access to healthcare, vaccines and vaccine mandates; each has their own sub-section (although they were all part of the public health measures used during the pandemic).

Out of scope material | Ngā kōrero i waho o te kaupapa

We received a large amount of feedback on a range of topics outside the Inquiry’s original terms of reference. You can read more about how we have treated material received that is outside the Phase One scope in the ‘Our approach’ section, and an overview of this material is provided in Out of scope material.