Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says "it's right to be asking" how much longer COVID-19 vaccine mandates are appropriate for.
Mandates are in place across many workforces, including for employees in the health and disability, education and Corrections industries, among others. Vaccine passes are also in use and are needed to enter hospitality venues, events, and close contact services like hairdressers.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said on Wednesday the use of vaccine mandates for certain workforces is something the Government keeps under review.
"As I've previously indicated, it is possible that some workforces will find those requirements removed before others and we'll do that based on public health advice and based on a proportionate risk assessment as we make those decisions."
Dr Bloomfield says mandates are in the process of being looked at.
"The mandates are in place and, of course, like all those broader public health measures, some of which are quite intrusive on people's lives - the requirement to wear masks in certain settings, the use of COVID vaccination certificates for entering some places under the red setting," he said during Thursday's COVID-19 press conference.
"What I would say is that one of the reasons New Zealand's in a good position now, even though we have a very large Omicron outbreak, is because we have high vaccination rates across our population, including relatively high booster rates."
Dr Bloomfield says there's "no doubt" mandates and COVID-19 vaccine certificates have helped New Zealand get a high vaccination rate, where 95.3 percent of the eligible population has had two doses and 72.6 percent are boosted.
"The question that it's right to be asking now is how much longer are those mandates appropriate for and if so for which groups of people. And that's the work we are involved in supporting at the moment."
Hipkins told AM last week that the date to end mandates varies by workforce.
"If you look at our health workers, for example, they're likely to be in this and dealing with this for some time, so there's a strong case there for that to be in place for longer."
He said while mandates for critical health care workers may remain in place for longer, the Government could move sooner to scrap them for other industries.
"Ultimately, that's going to be dictated by the public health considerations - by making sure we're dealing with COVID-19 - not what's happening out the front here today," he said, referring to the anti-mandate protest that was occurring outside Parliament at the time.
"One of the challenges that we're grappling with, of course, is… the peak that we're dealing with and currently climbing towards - we don't know what that peak is going to be and we don't know how long that's going to last but if you look at international experience, some countries peaked quite quickly and then came down from their peak quite quickly."
