COVID-19 has hit all of America hard, but no community has suffered more than Native Americans. Today, ‘Indian Country’ encompasses 574 federally recognized tribes and nations, who collectively possess 326 separate reservations scattered across 36 states. The reservations range in size from the Navajo Nation, which has 27,314 square miles and is larger than six of our states, to the Pit River Tribe’s cemetery, covering a mere 1.32 acres. Roughly half of America’s 9.7 million Indians and Alaska natives live on reservations, with many of the others dwelling in urban areas, especially Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, New York, and Phoenix.
But regardless of where they live, they are a people who have been devastated by the pandemic. The percentage of Native Americans being diagnosed with COVID-19 is almost twice the rate of non-Hispanic whites (1.7x) and hospitalizations have been 3.5 times higher. For every white person killed by the pandemic, 2.4 Indians have died. Initially, COVID-19 was thought to be a disease of the elderly, and this struck at the heart of Indian Country as the elders are leaders and the carriers of culture.
But as the disease has spread to younger generations, the situation has worsened. One out of every 1,300 white and Asian Americans, aged from forty to sixty-four has lost his or her life to the coronavirus. But among Native Americans, one…
