I could only find a summary of some 2023 results. Some 2023 findings might reflect that safety is really hard. Safety appears simple and obvious, but in practice it's not. Maybe people are feeling that.

In healthcare, safety became a policy priority following the 1999 US report 'To Err is Human,' but 20 years later (despite many small localized successes) there is not much evidence of widespread improvement. There is tension between clinicians, administrators and regulators. The work is intensely pressured and complex - more pressured and more complex all the time - such that harm is inevitable. But it should not be as bad as it is. In the early days patient safety was acknowledged to be hard, but it was also assumed there would be significant progress with the right effort. The outlook now is gloomier.

Politically, we've gone from a government that lost the plot to one that never had much of a plot. That has an affect. Policies are short-sighted and destructive and the leader isn't inspiring.

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic isn't helping. People are more sick more often. I haven't seen NZ data, but last year German workers took 20 sick days each on average (breaking the record set the year before). In the UK, since the beginning of the pandemic, 1.5% of the entire workforce has become newly economically dependent because of long-term sickness (workforce non-participation due to long term sickness was previously steadily decreasing for two whole decades). In the US 6.8% of all adults currently have Long-Covid, and 31% of them claim it significantly impairs their capacity to perform daily activities. Since Omicron was let loose in NZ school absences due to illness/medical have increased by 50%. There's an obvious health and safety problem here that is getting very little attention beyond demands for people to toughen up. The long-term outlook in terms of unwellness and things like brain injury from SARS-CoV-2 (a safety and a competency issue) is very bad because people are losing IQ points and visuo-constructive capacity.

The distinction you make there reminds me of Snowdon's Cynefin framework for decision making. Situations are simple, complicated, complex or chaotic. Simple situations are about best practice, which I guess means these are the rules and you have to follow them.

As James noted and a few others implied, signing the register risks becoming a tick-box exercise with no engagement, awareness and behaviour change (but it might legally protect you so there is that). As others have suggested I'd be thinking about (and possibly asking/discussing with them) what might engage your workers more fully in the process of understanding and responding to risk. Some people are very not reading focused in terms of absorbing safety information.

"I see on the news victims saying they would not have gone onto the island if they knew an eruption was eminent."

The issue here is the public are awful at assessing risk. People trust what others are doing, and they trust that businesses will keep them safe.

Such trust is naive. It was exploited by business operations that made a good profit for many years. And everyone let it go because the businesses were happy. Those unlucky ones who paid the cost of horrendous injury, lost life and terrible suffering should have been protected from what happened. White Island was always going to erupt. This was no black swan event.

"is it important for the tour operators to inform the visitors to the extent that they (the visitors) could make an 'informed decision'?"

Yes, but this is difficult. The warning would need to be graphic so people can make the decision both intellectually and emotionally. Intellectual decisions are sometimes very bad because they filter out real consequences. You can give someone something to read but half the people will gloss it, they will listen to what others say, they will take a cue from the body language and expressions of the person who hands it to them, they will set risks aside because they already decided to do the trip and are emotionally invested in it, etc.

Tourist trips to White Island should never have been allowed. Which means the regulator is primarily at fault. The business also are to blame as well but really the regulator should be prosecuting themselves. I guess they have a clause which means they can't do that.

• There is currently no evidence of human infection with SARS-CoV-2 caused by infectious aerosols distributed through the ventilation system air ducts. The risk is rated as very low.
• Well-maintained HVAC systems, including air-conditioning units, securely filter large droplets containing SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 aerosols (small droplets and droplet nuclei) can spread through HVAC systems within a building or vehicle and stand-alone air-conditioning units if the air is recirculated.
• The airflow generated by air-conditioning units may facilitate the spread of droplets excreted by infected people longer distances within indoor spaces.
• HVAC systems may have a complementary role in decreasing transmission in indoor spaces by increasing the rate of air change, decreasing the recirculation of air, and increasing the use of outdoor air. — Julie

I'm struggling to reconcile some of these claims: No evidence of infection via aerosols distributed through ventilation. Aerosols can spread through HVAC systems if air is recirculated.

What have I misunderstood?

Is the important difference between ventilation (used air is deposited outside and new air comes into the system) versus re circulation (used air is reused)?

A recent study of RAT test reliability found those used in NZ have a 31% false negative rate early in the infection period and an 11% false negative rate late in the infection period.

https://www.evidencealerts.com/Social/Article/nWo8EtxY6Roo7LTvH4lcXg?Source=twitter#.YiUR6J7Op0k.twitter