Our response to recent Government announcements on COVID-19

In light of recent Government announcements related to New Zealand’s COVID-19 response, and updated guidance from MBIE WorkSafe to inform vaccination policies for businesses and organisations, MSD is, as required, carrying out another COVID health and safety risk assessment.

Depending on the outcome of that assessment, we’ll review our controls including our Vaccination Policy. This Policy was due to be reviewed in June 2022.

Our current Vaccination Policy will remain in place in the meantime. If there are any proposed changes to any aspects of the Policy we will consult with all of our employees.

A very small percentage of our people are currently in an employment process because they are either not vaccinated or unwilling to disclose their vaccination status.

MBIE’s advice on Wednesday also recommended that employers take a cautious approach and pause any employment processes underway including termination of employment of unvaccinated workers.

So, in good faith, we’re following MBIE’s advice and will pause the Vaccination Policy employment outcomes process. Current notices of termination of employment will be withdrawn while we complete the latest risk assessment.

If we need to review any aspects of the Vaccination Policy and there are proposed changes, we’ll once again consult so we can hear from everyone in the organisation.