By Melissa Peralta, Editor-in-Chief
The most effective way of preventing contraction of COVID-19 is proper hygiene and social distancing, something that does not come easy to the citizens of Native American reservations.
The Navajo Nation is a Native American reservation covering parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico home to 356,890 people, predominantly Native American. Nearly one-third of the reservation’s population has no - or limited - access to clean, running water. Many citizens have to travel miles from their home to get water from a well or water pump - water often only good for hygiene because of contamination.
In the current pandemic, this could mean life or death. Without access to proper plumbing and safe water, citizens of the Navajo Nation are forced to leave home to get water, endangering themselves and their families.
Shanna Yazzie, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, told the Huffington Post, “It’s not the safest, but it’s the only water resource around here for us. That’s what we wash our hands and bodies and dishes with, and give to our dog and our plants.”
This is not just a problem on the Navajo Nation reservation; a large number of reservations have the same lack of clean water. Not only that, many reservations are miles upon miles away from hospitals and medical care. This means the number of cases in those areas will only continue to rise.
As of April 1, there have been 174 cases reported in the Navajo Nation as well as seven deaths from the virus.
President Donald Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill on March 27 to aid the country in the pandemic. $10 billion of the bill will go to Native tribes while $1 billion will go to the Indian Health Service.
“The silver lining is perhaps in the future we will have resources and the ability to really change those chronic disease trends in a meaningful way so our communities aren’t impacted in such a devastating way in the future should something like this happen again,” Chief Executive of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board Jerliyn Church told the Associated Press.
Contraction and death rates from the virus will only continue to rise for these citizens – and others – as time passes by. As it stands, indigenous people on reservations are vulnerable. Unless aid is given to allow them to stay home, the curve will be harder to flatten.
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