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A nurse checks vitals
of a Navajo Indian woman at a Covid-19 testing center at the
Navajo Nation town of Monument Valley in Arizona on 21 May
2020. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
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In the first few weeks of 2020, as president Donald Trump dismissed
and mocked warnings about a novel virus killing people faraway in
China, Native American leaders were taking the deadly threat seriously.
And they were right.
The infection rate among the Navajo Nation has now surpassed the
state of New York, the centre of the pandemic in the US, and on
Monday stood at 2,680 cases per 100,000 people compared with 1,890
in New York.
The data emerging from some
smaller tribes is even worse. By mid-May, the known infection
rate in the Pueblo of Zia, which has a population of 934 people,
was 3,319 per 100,000 ten times the rate of New Mexico where
the tribe is situated, and almost double the rate of New Jersey
the second worst hit US state.
The nearby Pueblo of San Felipe, population 3,544, is also badly
affected with 3,301 known cases per 100,000. Reporting lags mean
the actual infection rate for both tribes could be significantly
higher.
Coronavirus is novel to the world, but the impact on native communities
is anything but a new experience. Native
Americans feared the worst because they've been here before
many times.
European colonizers introduced, sometimes deliberately, an array
of new infectious diseases including measles, cholera, typhoid and
smallpox, which for many decades historians believed were solely
responsible for killing more than 70% of native people who had no
immunity to these deadly foreign germs.
"More than any other population in the country, the shared experience
of surviving a pandemic is in our blood, it's not historic, it's
current for American Indians, it's our reality. We took it seriously
because we had to," said Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, a social demographer
at the University of Arizona and citizen of the Northern Cheyenne
tribe in Montana.
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Native Americans of the
Navajo Nation people, pick up supplies from a food bank set
up at the Navajo Nation town of Casamero Lake in New Mexico
on 20 May. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
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As a child, Rodriguez-Lonebear recalls being told by her grandfather
not to play in certain spots where their relatives who died of smallpox
and typhoid were buried.
Now, it's increasingly thought that the cruel conditions of colonization
such as forced displacement, enslavement and starvation created
the perfect conditions for deadly disease outbreaks, according to
Jeffrey Ostler, historian at the University of Oregon.
"The impact of Indian removals like the Cherokee trail of tears
forced people into horrific conditions of poverty and destitution.
It wasn't just because they weren't immune, it was the conditions
of colonization which made them vulnerable," said Ostler.
This would also explain the lack of population rebound after each
epidemic: the same horrific conditions caused low life expectancy
and high infant and maternal mortality.
Again, experts say that parallels can be drawn with what's happening
today as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the US.
The disproportionately high Covid-19 infection rates in Indian
Country are attributed to chronic structural and economic inequalities
such as overcrowded housing, understaffed hospitals, lack of running
water and limited internet access resulting from the US government's
failure to comply with treaty obligations which agreed adequate
funding for basic services in exchange for vast amounts of tribal
land.
"Back then, like today, tribes are trying to tackle a fatal virus
without adequate resources. That's a strong historic parallel, the
simple failure of the federal and state governments to provide the
resources necessary," said Ostler.
In addition, high rates of medical conditions like obesity, diabetes,
heart and lung disease have contributed to worse Covid-19 outcomes.
For instance in Arizona, the death rate for indigenous people is
42.8 per 100,000 almost six times higher than for white people.
In Mississippi, they are dying from Covid-19 at 10 times the rate
of whites, according to analysis published last week by APM Research
Lab.
Native communities, who rely on their elders for oral history and
traditions, are also concerned about the survival of their ancient
cultures.
"We are survivors of genocide, our numbers prove it
for nations
with less than a thousand citizens, losing one person is too many,"
said Rodriguez-Lonebear. "And losing even one of our elders threatens
the future of our tribal nations as it means losing our language,
oral histories and the cornerstones of our families and communities."
In fact, the situation is likely worse as the data currently available
is extremely patchy.
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A nurse takes a swab
sample from a Navajo Indian woman complaining of virus symptoms,
at a testing center at the Navajo Nation town of Monument
Valley in Arizona on 21 May. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty
Images
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In New York, where significant ethnic disparities have emerged,
no data is being collected on indigenous peoples. "This oversight
is especially hammering
it's a painful blindspot in New York,"
said Andi Egbert, senior demographer at APMResearch.
More than 70% of Native Indians and Alaskan Natives live in urban
areas, where many use county and state health services where the
data black holes exist.
Native peoples with Covid-19 are being "eliminated from the data"
because their ethnicity is so frequently misclassified or ignored,
according to Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the national tribal
epidemiology centre based in Seattle.
"Without the data, we're going to keep dying and nobody is going
to acknowledge that
and resources allocated by congress won't
reach the communities," said Echo-Hawk.
Over recent weeks, Trump and his supporters have pushed for America
to reopen for business, even though scientists are still months
from finding a vaccine or treatment.
Yet native communities have demonstrated a greater historical awareness
of the experience of pandemics, and tried to protect their citizens
through measured emergency responses with limited resources, but
which assert their right to self determination and governance.
In South Dakota, tribes set-up roadblocks to protect their citizens
after the pro-Trump governor refused to issue a stay at home order.
In Washington, the Lummi Nation created the country's first field
hospital, while the Navajo Nation, the second largest tribe in the
US, has tested over 13% of those on the reservation compared to
4% in the US.
"Indigenous nations have been through so many waves of pandemics
and epidemics that they have a well of resilience, stamina and intergenerational
knowledge that others just do not have," said Jessica Kolopenuk,
a political theorist and indigenous studies scholar at the University
of Alberta. "I am of the strong opinion that indigenous knowledge
and world views can really help change the course of this pandemic."
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