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What’s Happening to the Navajo Nation
At least 100 people have died
Navajo Nation is home to around 170,000 people and, if it was its own state, it would have more coronavirus cases per capita than any state in America. So far, at least 100 people have died and over 3,100 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the territory, which covers portions of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.
The virus started spreading there in early March after experts say a man unknowingly returned from a basketball tournament with the virus.
As NPR and the AP report, the response has been a difficult task. There’s limited cellphone and internet access for quick communication, one-third of homes do not have clean running water, and another third do not have electricity. Many people live together in homes, making quarantining unrealistic. Grocery stores are far away from many people who live there. Half of the tribe was unemployed before the outbreak began.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez told the Washington Post that the tribe had not received “one cent” of the $8 billion that was allocated to Native American communities as part of the Cares Act.
Doctors Without Borders, the medical crisis organization, has dispatched staff to the Navajo Nation to offer medical support. “There are many situations in which we do not intervene in the United States, but this has a particular risk profile,” Jean Stowell, head of the organization’s U.S. Covid-19 Response Team, told CBS News. “You can’t expect people to isolate if they have to drive 100 miles to get food and water.”
“Look at what happened to us as a people,” Nez said in a recent interview. “We were taken out to Fort Sumner during the Long Walk. We almost got annihilated as a people. We persevered. We’re utilizing our own resources. We’re utilizing our own teachings, and we’re going to overcome this.”
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