It’s day seven of lock down in New Zealand and after the rush of last week’s announcements and the pace in which everything has happened, I’m still trying to make sense of what it means to be in lockdown and why, even with everything that I know – I still feel a bit anxious.

Well, as we do our part to reduce the spread of COVID-19, I’m reminded that it’s usually during times of disasters or public health outbreaks, we see how systems that were created with the intention to provide efficiency can instead create unintended inefficiencies.

What was once a near-eradicated disease, is now on a continual rise that has yet to peak and has forced the opening of a new measles unit at Middlemore Hospital. It spread throughout central and west Auckland before we began to see the South Auckland rise. Herd immunity (look it up) has been lost thanks to the spread of another virus – online memes.

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples falls on the 9th of August each year in an attempt to promote and protect the rights of the world’s indigenous population. The year 2019 also marks the International Year of Indigenous Languages.

I came across this article in the US over the weekend which suggested Fitbits and other wearables were inaccurately tracking heart rates in people of colour.

It’s been seven years since I sat in a room with Tongan mothers, desperate to kick their addiction to P, pleading for help so that they could be reunited with their children. Their pleas still haunt me today. Like each of the ministries represented in this country, it is not in good practice to work in silos, because “issues” cut across. In the same sense, while we tackle the drug issues in Aotearoa we cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening in the Pacific on route Aotearoa and Australia.

Relying on big data alone increases the chances we’ll miss something, while giving us the illusion we know everything.

We don’t know what the future holds when it comes to jobs. But our best guess to future proof Pacific kids into finding high paying jobs would be STEM- which means Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.