SEATTLE, Washington — The Navajo Nation is a sovereign nation with 27,000 miles stretching across Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, covering a larger geographical area than 10 states. While the Navajo people, a Native American group in Southwestern U.S. also known as Diné, have lived in the region for centuries, Navajoland is an American construct designated by the U.S. government after expansion forced thousands of Diné people from their homes. As a result, the U.S. agreed to carve out an area where the indigenous Diné could maintain their sovereignty and pledged to fund healthcare, education and other essential services. The Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, is now home to over 250,000 indigenous people, and the Navajo governing body has grown into the most extensive sovereign American Indian government. However, many Diné people living in the land are impoverished or unemployed, which has greatly affected the people’s ability to address and maintain COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation adequately.
COVID-19 in Navajo Nation
COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation has quickly become a public health crisis. As of June 25, 2020, the Navajo Nation has more than 7,000 confirmed cases and more than 300 confirmed deaths. As the number of new confirmed cases continues to rise, the sovereign nation is reeling to mitigate its effects. The Navajo Nation’s infection rate of 3.4% as of June 2020 is higher than New York’s peak of 1.9% back in April and represented the highest rate of infection per capita in the U.S. until the recent COVID-19 spikes in Florida.
The virus in the Navajo Nation has been extremely problematic, primarily due to the nation’s lack of healthcare services and its geographical size. According to BBC News, the Navajo Nation’s 12 medical facilities only have enough beds for a third of its population, and such facilities are spread out across 27,000 miles of geographical territory. As a result, many patients have to travel long distances to seek care, others are transferred to temporary facilities as beds fill up rapidly, and some diverted to seek care outside of the reservation altogether. COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation is particularly concerning for multigenerational households with elderly residents. They are more susceptible to the pandemic’s more devastating, often fatal, effects and may require more immediate care.
Navajo Nation’s Response to COVID-19
Measures to address and contain COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation have run into roadblocks because many Diné people living on Navajoland do not have access to essential resources. While the Navajo government quickly instituted lockdowns and set up food donations, such measures were not enough to successfully curb the virus outbreak.
In an interview with WebMD, Dr. Sriram Shamasunder, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and co-founder of UCSF’s Health, Equity, Action, Leadership (HEAL) Initiative, notes that almost one-third of the population lacks access to essentials like clean running water and electricity. Without these basic amenities, quarantining has taken on a different meaning. As Dr. Shamasunder states, “That means that while ‘shelter-in-place’ may for us be an inconvenience, for many Native Americans, it’s an impossibility. If you don’t have a refrigerator to store food or water to drink, then you’re not going to be able to just stay at home.” No running water also makes it difficult for many Diné people to sanitize their hands regularly, another key measure to preventing infection.
Support for the Navajo People
The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is working rapidly to provide essential medical relief with contamination trailers, testing and healthcare supplies, trained personnel and protective personnel equipment. Such efforts are ongoing and tenuous at best as new infections continue to spring up daily.
Moreover, nearly 40% of the Navajo Nation’s population are unemployed or living under the global poverty line as the pandemic rages through Navajoland. As such, many must now rely on donations and U.S. federal funding to get by. The Navajo Nation received more than $600 million of the $8 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act’s economic stimulus package, but only after a hard-fought legal battle against the U.S. Treasury.
While the Navajo government did receive the stimulus funding, such financial aid was allotted nearly a full month after the CARES Act bill was signed. The delay, disparities in funding and disputes over what groups deserve stimulus funding prompted the Navajo and 10 other indigenous tribes to sue the U.S. Treasury back in April. The Navajo and the other tribes argued successfully that for-profit groups like the Alaska Native Corporations should not be receiving the same funding as their federally recognized governments. A pause on funding to such corporations was granted, and the bulk of the stimulus went to the indigenous governments.
However, legal disputes over Treasury funding still continue today. A legal victory is essential to the Navajo government and other tribes to provide economic aid to its people amid the pandemic. These governing bodies cannot levy taxes as part of its land-trust agreement with the U.S. and thus rely heavily on business revenue.
Looking Ahead
COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation continues to threaten the safety and welfare of the Diné people as infections continue to spread across Navajoland. The Navajo government is working to secure the necessary funding to aid its people through the CARES Act stimulus package, but the legal battles are far from over. Hopefully, the sovereign nation and the other indigenous tribes will continue to fight successfully for the funding it needs to curb the coronavirus pandemic. More than ever now is the time for governments, nations and organizations to come together to fight and maintain COVID-19.
—Andrew Giang
Photo: Flickr