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Covid is killing Native Americans at a faster rate than any other community in the United States, shocking new figures reveal.
American Indians and Alaskan Native Americans die almost twice as many as white Americans, according to an analysis from the APM research lab shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Nationwide, one in 475 Native Americans has died from Covid since the start of the pandemic, compared to one in 825 white Americans and one in 645 black Americans. Native Americans suffered 211 deaths per 100,000 population, compared to 121 White Americans per 100,000 population.
The true death toll is undoubtedly much higher, as several states and cities provide spotty or no data on Native Americans lost to Covid. Of those who do, communities in Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas have been hit the hardest.
The findings are part of the lab’s Color of Coronavirus project and provide the clearest evidence to date that the Indian country has suffered terribly and disproportionately in the first year of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
Losses increase and grief accumulates.
“Everyone was affected. Some families have been wiped out. How can we get back to normal when we have lost so much after so many layers of trauma? It’s unbearable, ”said Amber Kanazbah Crotty, a delegate from the Navajo Nation Tribal Council.
Former Navajo President and Arizona State Representative Albert Hale died of Covid on Tuesday, bringing the tribe’s death toll to 1,038, equivalent to the loss of one in 160 people in the Reserve.
The numbers show that while several more infectious variants have yet to take root in the United States, the situation has already taken its toll in Indigenous communities and could worsen.
Map of Covid-19 deaths among indigenous peoples, by state
Last month was the deadliest to date in the United States, with 958 recorded Indigenous deaths – a 35% increase since December, a larger increase than for any other group. For white Americans, deaths have increased by 10% over the same period.
“Not only do indigenous people have the highest rate of Covid-related deaths, the rate is accelerating and disparities with other groups are widening. This latest data is terrible in every way for Native Americans, ”said Andi Egbert, senior analyst at APM Research Lab.
There are 574 Native American Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages recognized by the federal government in the United States. The Navajo Nation, the second largest in terms of population, has suffered the highest number of deaths, but small tribes face insurmountable losses.
In Montana, the Northern Cheyenne tribe has so far lost around 50 people to Covid, or 1% of its total population of 5,000.
“Our collective grief is unimaginable. Losing 1% of our population is equivalent to losing 3 million Americans. Native Americans are used to dying at disproportionate rates and we are used to scarcity, but Covid is different, there is a growing sense of hopelessness, ”said Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, assistant professor of sociology and Native American studies at the University of California.
Rodriguez-Lonebear added: “I fear the long term impacts on mental health, our children, resilience and community cohesion. We are in the middle of a huge storm and we are not prepared for the consequences.
About a quarter of those who died were native Cheyenne speakers. The tribal clinic is currently receiving 100 doses of vaccine per week, a rate at which it will take nearly a year to immunize everyone.
“Our language, culture and traditions are what make us Cheyenne, but we are losing our teachers. How am I going to teach my son when I have so much to learn? Indigenous communities face a cultural crisis that other communities are not.
In Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation, the country’s largest tribe, has suffered a relatively low death toll thanks to a well-functioning tribal-run health service and a public health system that pushed testing, the search for contacts and coherent messages led by science since the day. one, according to Chef Chuck Hoskin.
“We have one of the best public health systems in the country, which allowed us to be nimble when the worst crisis in modern memory struck… We are a society, unlike the whole of the United States, who believes our citizens have access to health care at no cost, ”Hoskin said.
However, there were significant losses. At least 35 of the 2,000 Cherokee speakers who remain fluent have died from Covid, undermining an ambitious program launched in 2019 to prevent the language from becoming extinct.
As a result, tribal leaders have decided to prioritize fluent speakers, alongside frontline workers and elders, and about half have now been vaccinated. Overall, nearly one in 10 residents of the reserve has been vaccinated.
“So far, we have led this country to disseminate the vaccine effectively and efficiently. The only question now is whether the United States can follow the Cherokee nation, ”added Hoskin.
Anecdotal evidence from across the country suggests that tribal immunization programs, which can include mobile clinics, home visits and drive-thru services, appear to work more effectively and efficiently than in many states, although the shortages are widespread. .
Amid growing debates and concerns about vaccine reluctance in communities of color, the Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI) conducted the first-ever national survey to better understand Native American knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. .
About 75% of participants said they would be willing to receive a Covid vaccine – compared to just 56% of the general US population according to a large survey in December 2020. The vast majority see the vaccine as a community responsibility, although three of the neighborhoods have security issues. The survey included Native Americans and Alaska Natives in 46 states, representing 318 different tribal affiliations.
“The results show the danger of bringing all people of color together when deciding on public health messages to overcome reluctance to vaccinate Covid,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the National Tribal Epidemiology Center based in Seattle.
The findings, released last week, have since been incorporated into a public health campaign called “Be a Good Ancestor,” which focuses on community responsibility rather than individualism.
Joe Biden’s National Covid Strategy outlines plans to bolster federal resources to speed up vaccine deployment in the Indian country, as part of the administration’s efforts to improve fairness.
Overall, there is no race data for around 42,000 deaths from Covid in America, meaning we do not know the ethnicity of one in 10 people killed by the virus until present, according to the researchers. It is likely that 700 or more Native Americans are not included in the data.
“Structural racism in data collection systems makes us invisible by hiding deaths, which perpetuates inequalities and leads to more deaths in our communities, as this information is used to allocate resources,” Echo said. Hawk. “The maze of missing data is part of the genocide that continues to be perpetrated against our people. Their last stories are lost.
The data issues have not been resolved in the past year. Instead, the same gaps now hamper our understanding of vaccine deployment: Nearly half of the data on race and ethnicity is missing from vaccinees, according to the CDC, thwarting efforts to ensure access and accountability. fair.
In states with incomplete or no data, it is extremely difficult to know whether states and counties have allocated vaccine doses to Indigenous residents using them appropriately.
Tribal leaders and health experts agree that while the excessive death toll is shocking, it is hardly surprising given chronic structural, economic and health inequalities – such as overcrowded housing, understaffed hospitals, lack of running water and limited access to healthy and affordable food from the US government’s failure to meet treaty obligations by promising adequate funding for basic services in exchange for vast amounts of tribal land.
After centuries of broken promises, expectations are high as Native American voters helped Joe Biden win crucial swing states including Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada to take the White House.
On Wednesday, Biden approved the Navajo Nation’s declaration of disaster, which will translate into additional federal resources for the tribe as Covid rates rise again.
But long-standing inequalities require transformational change, and experts ask Biden to fully fund India’s health service, for the first time in history, which would allow the yet-to-be-appointed new director to reduce chronic disparities by health issues that contributed to the high death toll.
“Native people came forward for Biden-Harris. Now is the time to show up for them, ”Echo-Hawk said.
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