 Hello, I'm Sharon Freel, Professor of Health Equity and Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Governance in Rednet, here in the College of Asia in the Pacific. The health and wellbeing of societies in Australia and across our region will be affected not just by the tragic loss of lives from COVID-19. To live healthy and flourishing lives, people need material resource, a sense of control over our lives and a voice in the decision-making processes that affect our lives, and sadly COVID-19 has rocked these foundations. As we unfurl from our reclusive state, many people will struggle with widespread economic insecurity, uncertainty about the rules of society post COVID-19, and anxiety about the future. And while no one is untouched by COVID-19, its impact and the impact of how our health, economic and social systems respond is very socially patterned. People who are already poor, have precarious employment, high levels of existing debt at experiencing homelessness, have put out access to quality health and social services, living with disabilities, are socially marginalised and have at the least social capital will feel the devastating impacts of this pandemic most. Their physical and mental health will suffer now and for a long time into the future. COVID-19 therefore throws into sharp relief the critical need to address what is referred to as the social determinants of health and health inequities. The conditions into which we are born, grow, live, work and age, which are already very unequally distributed in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific region. It's quite understandable and absolutely necessary that governments and communities are keenly focused on the health system response to the virus and the disease. But we must not neglect the equitable promotion of physical and mental wellbeing and long-term disease prevention. And to do this takes us right out of the health care system into public policy domains such as labour, social protection, housing. But to complicate things a little more, pandemics are just one of the challenges for health and health inequity in the 21st century. Climate change, increased financial and corporate control of global supply chains and new levels of inequality, each bring heightened health risks. Together, these are the commercial, environmental and social determinants of health inequities. And each of these factors is shaped by public policy, industry practices and the way in which society chooses to run its affairs. Issues of governance. As we recover from COVID-19, there is an opportunity to think and act differently. It is essential that we understand these issues that I've been speaking about not in a reductionist way but as complex systems and that intervening in these systems can improve health equity as well as other social and environmental outcomes. And so rather than pathologising the problem of health and health inequity we need a much greater understanding of how to shape and steer the way society chooses to run its affairs. We need a better understanding of the dynamic institutions, actors and ideas that shape multi-sectoral public policy, market practices and products and the actions of civil society groups and non-government organisations. Only then can we move forward to ensure that the complex system that is humanity functions to ensure positive and equitable health outcomes.