Church at home and prayerful...

Viewing www.https://ncov2019.live for International statistics on COVID19

This week I'm spending church at home with the unprecedented move of many churches, where 100+ people who congregate together have been banned, so some churches who already have online platforms are streaming their services live for their faithful viewers and others are considering YouTube videos of their pastors/ministers for their congregations.

I'm also mindful that as I live in the relative safety of my home in South Auckland, NZ, isolated islands in the southern hemisphere, but there are countries overseas that are battling bravely against what they would have deemed a plague in days of old.

Italy, in particular, has lost over 4,000 people to COVID19 (coronavirus), topping China where the virus was believed to have originated from and between 31 - 33% of people worldwide have recovered from this disease as some have succumbed to the illness and others are still in serious conditions.

In viewing www.https://ncov2019.live, a website that was developed by a 17 year old in Seattle, this young man was able to sweep information from various countries' websites from around the world to give an interesting picture of how this virus to affecting our countries all over the world.

As an indigenous researcher, (former geographer) I use quantitative and qualitative information that is available to me from all difference sources to inform the decisions that I make personally and also for the consideration of those around me to keep them informed as well.

From this website, I've learnt a lot in that 172 of 195 countries in the world have been infected and that one can also check the countries in real time (at the time of the data being updated for each country) of the devasting affect that this virus is having of sweeping around the world leaving devastation in its wake.

It reminds me of the research that I did for a book that we released last year called 'The 1918 deadly epidemic in Samoa' in that hundreds died but the difference was that many did not know of the what to do to curb the devastation and again it affected mainly the mature adults and not so much the young.

Therefore, it gives a picture of how very real the concerns are and that even though NZ is at the second stage of a level 4 stage of the virus of affecting NZ, parents of children and caregivers of our most vulnerable our elder seniors need to heed the very real advice of social distancing, regular handwashing with soap and staying home. All of this with a lot of prayers...