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SANTA FE, New Mexico: The first doses of the coronavirus vaccine are being administered to Native American communities from the desert highlands of New Mexico to a coastal fishing tribe outside Seattle, as the federal government and states they rush to protect one of America’s most vulnerable populations. .
The dual effort includes a massive logistical operation by the federal government’s Indian Health Service that focuses on vaccinating health workers at clinics in sovereign Indian nations across the country and urban clinics that serve Native Americans outside of the reservation.
The agency’s initial allocation of approximately 22,000 doses of vaccines from Germany’s Pfizer and BioNTech arrived on Monday (Dec. 14) to distribution centers across vast portions of the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico and in urban places like Phoenix, where hundreds of health care workers who care for Native Americans got vaccinated Thursday.
But many tribes selected a separate route to receive vaccine deliveries through state health agencies that in some cases have longer and trusting relationships with tribal communities. That system is driving vaccines to small tribes like Acoma Pueblo, known for its “city of heaven” atop a table in the New Mexico desert.
Native Americans have been disproportionately sickened and killed by the pandemic, despite extreme precautions that have included curfews, roadblocks, universal testing and the suspension of business at casinos and artisanal stalls.
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The Lummi Nation, a 5,000-member tribe living on a Washington state peninsula by the ocean, began vaccinating 300 doses Thursday while fighting emerging cases with a shelter-in-place order.
Tribal elder James Scott, a facility worker at the reserve’s community clinic, was the first to be vaccinated. In the next few days, vaccines will go to tribal police, food program workers, long-term care residents and healthcare workers.
“We are so happy I can’t even describe it,” said Dr. Dakotah Lane, medical director of the Department of Public Health and a member of the Lummi Nation, as he lined up to receive his vaccine.
The Lummi reservation began rationing its first 300 doses of vaccine while fighting the escalating cases with a shelter-in-place order. (AP Photo / Elaine Thompson)
Lummi Nation managed to keep the virus at bay with extensive testing and quarantine accommodation with food provided for those who tested positive, Lane said. There have been 133 cases of COVID-19 in the 52-square-kilometer reserve, with four hospitalizations and no deaths.
The tribe decided to get vaccinated through the Indian Health Service to avoid competition with hospitals and nursing homes that would compete for the state’s allocation. Lane called the decision “a calculated gamble.”
The Indian Health Service has said that around 68,000 doses of Pfizer and an injection pending approval from drug maker Moderna should be enough to protect front-line health workers at the 338 facilities that serve Native Americans in the USA Who signed up to work with the agency.
Pfizer vaccinations began Tuesday among healthcare workers at Navajo and Hopi nation clinics in parts of Arizona and New Mexico, where police escorted 3,900 doses to clinics.
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COVID-19 has relentlessly roamed among the Navajo Nation’s multi-generational rural households. Navajo health officials have confirmed 20,000 coronavirus cases across the reservation and at least 727 deaths since the pandemic began.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez in a statement called the vaccine delivery effort “a blessing to all of our people, including doctors, nurses and many other health care warriors.”
Three indigenous peoples in New Mexico with populations as small as 250 are receiving doses of the vaccine through trusting relationships with state health officials.
In Acoma Pueblo, the first round of gunfire on Wednesday was for health care personnel, the elderly and workers on the front lines of food distribution and mental health visits to tribal members living in self-imposed isolation to protect themselves against the infection.
The town has funneled millions of dollars in federal aid toward its lockdown strategy to withstand the COVID-19 pandemic: closing its casino, installing 24-hour roadblocks, and increasing food deliveries and virus contact tracing among residents. residents confined to their homes.
Since the pandemic began, there have been 16 virus-related deaths in the town of about 3,000 residents, said the town’s governor, Brian Vallo.
Medical worker Melissa Fitzgerald begins to cry in an emotional response after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine on December 17, 2020. Fitzgerald, a radiologic technologist, has been treating coronavirus patients since the outbreak began on the reservation in his birthday in March and said it’s been a long journey. (AP Photo / Elaine Thompson)
The infections occurred despite precautions against the pandemic, including near-universal testing of the village virus and roadblocks to prevent tribe members from unauthorized travel and to keep visitors away.
Vallo has left town only once since March to help deliver food to tribal members living in Albuquerque.
Vallo said Acoma Pueblo leaders doubted that the local health care unit overseen by the Indian Health Service had enough medical staff to administer the vaccine due to a recent reorganization that curtailed local health services.
Many tribes, federal and state health officials are grappling with a legacy of mistrust among Native Americans linked to routine frustrations with health care services and historical events dating back to the arrival of deadly diseases transmitted by European settlers.
But the arrival of the vaccine to Acoma this week was greeted with gratitude and the volunteer participation was enthusiastic, Vallo said.
“The community also realizes or understands that there are limited quantities and therefore it will take time to fully vaccinate everyone,” he said.
Kailee Fretland, a pharmacist at a Red Lake Nation Indian Health Service hospital in Minnesota, helped design distribution to Native Americans in the U.S. Taking into account vaccine access gaps during the virus outbreak 2009 H1N1 flu.
“We went back and reflected on what happened to H1N1,” he said in an interview with the Native America Calling program broadcast on public radio stations. “Tribes were often not prioritized and we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen with COVID.”
Derrick Lente, a New Mexico state legislator and a tribe member in Sandia Pueblo outside Albuquerque, said his neighbors are eager to get vaccinated.
“Most people have said: put me on, give it to me, I’ll take it,” said Lente. “They have seen the ugliness of what this pandemic has done to our community. They want a sense of security, if not for themselves, for their elders. “
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