But as more and more news emerged about how the virus spread, and how fast, Beyale became nervous. At the time, he lived in a classic one-room space called Hogan with 11 other people. No running water. There are no bathrooms.
Like many of its approximately 400,000 compatriots, most of whom live in the 27,000-square-mile reserve that stretches north of New Mexico, Arizona, and a small southern Utah component, Beyale, 31, knew health care could be a long road. And Navajo, suffering from the highest rates of diabetes and obesity, have been vulnerable to viral infections, adding the H1N1 swine flu epidemic 2009.
Concerned about her physical condition and that of those around her, Beyale moved to a tent, feeding her cell phone through solar panels. He still lives there today, dressed in a mask the few times he is with other people, even though and the maximum of the other Navajo have been vaccinated.
A year after experiencing one of the country’s deadliest COVID-19 epidemics, the Navajo Nation is approaching collective immunity through a competitive vaccination campaign. However, tribal leaders said they would continue to demand curfews, collection limits, and masks, even though federal fitness rules state that such restrictions are sometimes unnecessary for vaccinated people.
Health experts and Navajo said generations of classes on native Americans’ susceptibility to external diseases and infections have taught them to pay close attention to public health.
“In the Navajo Nation, you have a collective mindset that’s there: ‘What I’m doing affects the other people around me, my family, and that’s why I have to be more guilty and more careful, because it’s not just about me. ””Said Beyale. ” So I don’t wear a brain mask. I’m not getting vaccinated. Because if there are still other people who die from this virus, then I have a legal responsibility to take care of myself and other people. “people around me. “
COVID-19 first affected many urban and coastal areas, then temporarily became ill with Native Americans across the country. Native Americans were 3. 5 times more likely to get coronavirus than non-Hispanic white Americans, and their mortality rate doubled that of white Americans, according to knowledge of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Native Americans were also more likely to have younger poor health than other Americans, with 40 years being the average age of inflamed people, compared to 51 white Americans. were approximately six hundred consistent with 100,000, compared to 169 consistent with 100,000 for white Americans, according to the knowledge that the CDC admits is likely to underestimate the severity of the scenario due to poor knowledge collection of COVID cases, race, and ethnicity.
Today, more than 70% of the eligible population served through the Navajo Nation Indigenous Health Service has been fully vaccinated, giving the reserve one of the national vaccination grades, tribal officials said. with officials lately running on young people over the age of 12 to 15.
Although they now allow in-person meetings of up to 15 more people and gradually allow the sale of handicrafts on the roads, tribal fitness officials have said they are unlikely to impose restrictions, especially as they now plan to reopen visitors. and the Antelope Canyon areas have been closed for over a year, eliminating a significant source of income for tourists.
YOU: Help quality journalism like this.
The CDC said other vaccinated people can resume their general activities without wearing a mask or walk away if local or state regulations allow it. Navajo officials said tourists from other regions should still wear a mask on their visits, at least in the short term.
The collective caution exercised through the Navajo reflects a classic confidence in the importance of the network and the wisdom that Native Americans will have to accept. Centuries of mistrust and promises damaged through the national and federal government have left some skeptical Navajo of foreigners at best. .
Notah Ryan Begay III, 48, said many of his Navajo comrades understood that the reserve’s health care formula can be overcome smoothly again. Begay, a former professional golfer, now runs a nonprofit committed to physical education and wellness. He said the long-standing fitness inequalities faced by Navajo and other Native Americans, partly due to the “extraordinary human rights violations” committed by white settlers in the past, have made tribes cautious.
“We can hardly experience any other epidemic,” he said from Albuquerque. “What tribal leaders have learned is that in times of despair, when resources are limited, we will be the last in line. “
Navajo officials blocked the reserve on March 20, 2020, however, in May, the Navajo nation had the constant infection rate with the population in the United States.
In total, at least 1,300 citizens of the Navajo Nation died from the pandemic, two-thirds of whom are 60 years of age or older, according to tribal officials. It is a devastating loss of culture and history for other people that relies heavily on their elders for classical training, training and language guidance, tribal officials said.
The Navajo are the largest native American tribe in the United States. While some live in the reserve, most live in the reserve, which is about the length of West Virginia. Beyale Hogan, lack running water or electric power at home, so it’s hard to follow even the top fundamental advice for a pandemic: washing your hands.
“One of the things the pandemic has shown is the fragility of the system,” Beyale said. “It was crazy when he came to the United States, but when he came to the Navajo Nation, it was even more extreme. “
Recognizing the disproportionate effect of the virus, the federal government has provided more than $9 billion in assistance to the Indigenous Health Service, which oversees reserve clinics across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also contributed to vaccination and testing logistics.
More: ‘Faceless Death’: After a year of denial and limited public mourning, COVID survivors ask Americans to cry with them
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said tough smallpox, tuberculosis and swine flu classes have led his leadership to act more strictly than the state and municipal governments of neighboring states. .
Nose, first of all, stated that the blockades had an unforeseen advantage: young people trapped at home had more time to be informed directly of their elders, but this culture of having several generations under one roof has also facilitated the spread of the pandemic.
“The Navajo people, when this virus entered the country, hit us to the weakest,” Nez said in an interview in March. “We like to be in multigenerational houses or houses. That’s who we are. We have our aunts and uncles”. that with us, our grandmothers and grandparents. And once the virus entered the house, it spread quickly.
Nez said the lack of demonstrations opposed to masking orders, curfews and other measures demonstrated the Strong Sense of Responsibility of Navajo in the Net, and his willingness to maintain restrictions reflects his understanding of why they are important, he said.
“It may have hit us a lot harder, it could have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for the Navajo’s respect for their public fitness professionals,” he said. “We see the gentleness at the end of the tunnel, coming out”. of the worst component of this pandemic. “
Today, Nose said he didn’t know when Navajo Nation fitness officials could simply introduce a loosening of restrictions and set a 75% vaccination target. He remains involved in the spread of COVID-19 variants on the reservation.
“I know I heard the CDC say you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re fully vaccinated,” Nez said at a public briefing this week. “The question here is, how do we know other people are vaccinated?careful because we have been severely beaten here in the Navajo Nation. “
Libby Washburn, a Special Assistant to the White House for the President for Indigenous Affairs, said tribes across the country have done an “amazing job” in responding to the pandemic after the first outbreaks. He said higher case rates have also surprised many experts. as tribal aptitude officers, and that biden’s administration respects the tribal government’s legal rights to establish its own policies on that experience. The Navajo Nation has had more than 30,000 cases filed.
Washburn said federal officials continue to prioritize the tests, vaccines, and logistics needed to unload vaccines.
“I think the whole country was watching while they were treating him, and they treated him admirably,” said Washburn, a member of chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma who worked extensively in New Mexico. “With the death toll, he moved them, which was serious. We are proud of what they have done, proud of what all the tribes have done, throughout the Indian country. “
Right next to the reserve at Cameron Trading Post, 105, near the east front of the Grand Canyon, general manager Josh Atkinson, who is white, said he understood why his neighbors and friends were cautious.
Atkinson’s family circle is now in its fifth generation at the helm of the post, promoting Navajo fried bread tacos as well as crafts through artists from Plains, Pueblo, Hopi and Navajo, adding classic hand-woven carpets. American, he said.
The trading post came to a time in March 2020 when the Navajo Nation ordered closure and, although the position is not in the reserve, Atkinson said, he thought it should comply with navajo Nation rules.
“We felt that their protocols were the right way forward. And we still think they did the most productive work,” he said. None of our workers contracted COVID at work, yet they lost their family, lost friends. We had to take what we thought, the most productive route.
Atkinson, 56, said the position is still reeling from the death of weaver at Elsie Glander, who died in November at the age of 75 of a COVID-19 infection. An unfinished carpet is located on the loom where he worked for years, waiting for hands that once weed a value of $55,000 in collectibles.
“Her loom is still there, like a monument to her, ” said Atkinson.
Atkinson said the trading post slowly returns to normal, with limited restaurants and an increasing number of tourists stopping. He said it’s time for the Navajo Nation to start opening up to the public, which would help his business.
“Do I think they’re a little too conservative right now?I’m doing it. But the president of the Navajo Nation and the governor of Arizona didn’t call me to ask for my opinion,” he said.
He added: “Safe conservatism does nothing wrong. “
Back in Shiprock, Beyale still lives in his off-grid store, where he plans to stay while practicing indigenous land control and agricultural practices. He had tried to concentrate on that, he said, but the pandemic made him perceive how harmful he is. for Navajo to count on foreigners, even for commodities such as food. Most of the reserve is considered a “food desert” through federal officials due to low income and long travel to grocery stores.
Beyale said that strengthening the tribe’s true sovereignty, not only by exercising its rights to factor public aptitude ordinances, but also by developing its own food, could address long-term problems, adding the next pandemic.
“I’m looking to rebuild and restore my relationship with my environment, with the earth, with the water, with my food,” he said. “This is what we are as the basis of people, like Diné – our Coming out among us and with the environment around us, this concept of kinship that goes beyond our own species. I need to show what’s possible, that we don’t have to commit as much of ourselves and the earth just to survive. “
Stories like this are imaginable thanks to our subscribers like you. Your help will allow us to continue producing quality journalism.
Stay informed by subscribing to one of our newsletters.