Former Director-General of Health Sir Ashley Bloomfield has been formally knighted at Government House on Wednesday.
Sir Ashley was joined by members of his whānau for the ceremony, highlighting his work in guiding Aotearoa through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking to the media after the ceremony, Sir Ashley was joined by the Prime Minister, providing a sense of Déjà vu to the heights of the pandemic when Chris Hipkins was the COVID-19 Response Minister.
Sir Ashley said the honour is a "huge privilege".
"Every time I think about it I immediately think of all the people who I worked with, their faces are vivid in my memory, who did just fantastic work."
Sir Ashley isn't sure where he will hang his award but said he will "enjoy wearing it today".
Hipkins said Sir Ashley's honour is "absolutely incredible".
"Sir Ashley thoroughly deserves the recognition and so do all of the other public servants who we've also been able to recognise in a variety of different ways over the past year or so."
Hipkins remembers the "quiet, calm reassurance" Sir Ashley provided throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Some days were more stressful than others because things would happen and you'd need to respond quickly and so on, but in the time that I was working with Ashley he was always just such a voice of calm and reassurance."
"I don't think I would've been able to do the job without his support," Hipkins added.
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