Cronkite News
PHOENIX – The disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had on minorities underscores the longstanding failure of federal officials to respond to the needs of Native Americans, Rep. Betty McCollum said Thursday in a subcommittee meeting on the Indian Health Service.
“Five tribes are experiencing more instances of coronavirus per 100,000 citizens than any states, including New York,” the Minnesota Democrat said, citing data from the
American Indian Studies Center
at UCLA and
Indian Country Today.
According to a
data visualization
posted by UCLA researchers, if COVID-19 infection rates were scaled per 100,000 people and if tribes were states, the top five infection rates nationwide would be tribes. The Navajo Nation ranks fifth in the highest number of cases per capita, the data said.
The virus has raced through the Navajo reservation, which touches parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona and is home to 173,000 tribal members. As of Tuesday, 6,110 COVID-19 cases have been reported on the reservation, with 277 deaths and 2,814 recoveries.
“The United States government has a trust responsibility to Indian tribes and signed treaties promising to provide health care and other services,” said
McCollum, chairwoman of the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. “Hundreds of years later, the failure to meet these treaty and trust obligations continues.”
Even before the pandemic, she said, the federal government had failed to provide basic preventative health care or to meet treaty obligations extending beyond health care. Since the pandemic was declared in March, officials have not provided sufficient personal protective equipment and adequate test kits, and they delayed distribution of federal relief funds, McCollum added.
As of Friday, June 12, the
Arizona Department of Health Services
reported 1,654 new cases of COVID-19 in the state – a record for a single day – and 17 additional deaths, bringing the total to 1,144. Health officials said 442,886 tests for COVID-19 have been completed in public and private labs in Arizona, and 6.7% of tests have come back positive.
For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.
House Committee on Appropriations Notice
Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies - Indian Health Service Covid-19 Response June 11, 2020
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News and is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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