Monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on Wairarapa

The social and economic impacts of COVID-19 have been sharp and are yet to fully unfold. As big fans of monitoring, we couldn’t help but have a good look through available data to obtain an understanding of the extent of these impacts on our local communities in Wairarapa.

As a sub-region, Wairarapa often gets absorbed into wider monitoring and reporting for the Greater Wellington region, so it’s interesting to look at our local data specifically. This provides a much greater level of insight and highlights the challenges our local areas may be facing, which can vary greatly from those experienced in larger centres.

Planalytics, therefore, compiled a monitoring dashboard of key metrics (such as health, housing, and transport) for Wairarapa, to begin to understand these challenges. And what did we find? As at 22 May 2020, Wairarapa appeared to be tracking well in terms of health statistics compared to other parts of the country. In April, media reported that Wairarapa was the first DHB region to be clear of active coronavirus cases. However, increasing demand for housing coupled with uncertain supply suggests that our communities could be in for some testing times ahead.

Presenting Wairarapa metrics in a dashboard format provides a solid starting point to track trends and inform local decision-making. Although these are uncertain times for many, we take comfort in the fact that open data is available to provide the insight necessary to help us navigate a way forward at the local level.