Locals have submitted their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic to phase two of the national Royal Commission of Inquiry (Covid-19 Lessons), which focuses on vaccine mandates, vaccine safety, and lockdowns.

Members of the public were able to submit to the inquiry until late April, with one such submission coming from Wānaka resident Chelsea Norman.

Chelsea’s submission was on behalf of her sister Amanda Jade Smees, who died of sudden cardiac arrest on January 4, 2022, 17 days after taking her second Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine.

“I want everyone to hear Amanda’s story,” Chelsea told the Wānaka App.

Amanda (42), who worked as a barista in Wānaka, had to be double vaccinated in order to keep her job because of the government’s vaccine mandates.

“Amanda was genuinely afraid and scared to get it,” Chelsea said in her submission

Her death from sudden cardiac arrest just over a fortnight after her second vaccination in January 2022 came as an enormous shock to her family, including her two school-age children (12 and 15).

The autopsy delivered on September 15, 2022, attributed the direct cause of death to sudden cardiac arrest, with an antecedent cause of myocarditis and caffeine toxicity, and the underlying condition of “Post Covid-19 vaccination period”.

Her death was flagged in November by the Covid-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board as a possible fourth death in New Zealand linked to the vaccine because it was determined that Amanda had myocarditis at the time of her death.

“From here I wanted this documented on Amanda’s death certificate as her cause of death. It was incredibly important to me and our family.”

Chelsea’s regular inquiries to the Coroner received “the same generic response”, that the Coroner was still waiting to hear from the pathologist, and they were still testing tissue samples.

Then in December 2024 she received an email from the Coroner’s Office informing her that a formal inquiry would not be opened as Amanda’s death appeared to be from natural causes - despite the Covid vaccine having already been identified as a factor.

The family was devastated, Chelsea said, and she was determined that Amanda’s death not be “swept under the carpet”. 

She replied to the Coroner that Amanda was a fit and healthy 42-year-old mother who had died as a result of the vaccine, and that the family planned to take action.

On January 8, 2025, she received an apology from the Coroner’s Court.

Amanda’s death certificate, issued in March 2025, reflects the original autopsy. It lists the direct cause of death as sudden cardiac arrest, with the antecedent cause as myocarditis and caffeine toxicity, and the underlying cause “Post Covid-19 vaccination period”.

“No one should have been forced into getting the vaccine,” Chelsea said in her submission.

Chelsea said she felt that no one had been held accountable for her sister’s death.

She said she believed others in New Zealand had been harmed by the vaccines and had “absolutely no recognition”, but given Amanda’s family did receive that recognition: “I know she would want her story told.”

Phase two of the Covid inquiry began in November 2024. Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden said it was “important that New Zealanders tell the inquiry about their experiences so we can be better prepared as a country for any future events”. 

“I look forward to seeing the final report and recommendations delivered to me in February 2026,” the minister said.

PHOTO: Supplied