Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: Navajo Nation concerned about coronavirus variant
Navajo have COVID-19 under control, but still leery of Delta variant
Thursday, June 24, 2021
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – The Navajo Nation has yet to record a single case of the Delta variant of COVID-19, but now is not the time for tribe members to let down their guard, Navajo President Jonathan Nez said Wednesday.
Nez spent much of the time during a Washington Post program on public health talking about the Navajos’ success in fighting the pandemic, falling from a national COVID-19 hotspot at one point last year to negligible case numbers today.
But while the tribe has “been very cautious … I think we need to continue to be cautious,” Nez said, in part because of the arrival of the highly contagious Delta variant.
“We have heard updates that the city of Tucson has identified a Delta variant … so we are concerned,” Nez said.
An Arizona Department of Health official said Wednesday that the Delta variant has been found in northern, central and southern Arizona.
“The Alpha variant currently is the predominant strain in Arizona, but we anticipate that there will be an increase in the Delta variant since it appears to be more transmissible than the Alpha variant,” said Steve Elliott, a health department spokesperson.
Arizona Public Health Association Executive Director Will Humble said experts “expect that the Delta variant will be dominant by mid-to-late summer in Arizona.”
“It’s going to take over,” he said. “It’s just outcompeting the other strains. The question is how long it’s going to take.”
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It 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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