Spread out in the Southwest over an area the size of West Virginia, the Navajo and Hopi nations have everything a deadly virus needs to thrive.
Coal mining has left many people with weakened respiratory systems. About one third of residents don’t have running water or electricity. Water is hauled by truck by people like Johnnie Henry, president of the Navajo Nation’s Church Rock chapter house community center, shown here.
That means stockpiling food to wait out the virus and frequent hand washing aren’t options. Many who do have running water fear abandoned uranium mines have contaminated aquifers.
With housing in short supply, it’s common for three generations to live in cramped quarters, which makes it easy for the coronavirus to spread. Health care is often a long drive away through mountains, mesas, and desert. The reservations have just 12 medical centers, where there are shortages of protective gear.
As a result, the Navajo Nation has suffered the highest per capita infection rate and death toll in the country. “We are still surging,” says Cassandra Begay, who is on the leadership team of the Navajo & Hopi Families Covid-19 Relief Fund. “We have not reached our peak yet.”
Begay and 10 other women started the fund in March and have raised $4 million on GoFundMe. Because there are just 16 grocery stores, the group set up 10 food-distribution centers that rotate locations. Volunteers package and sanitize two-week supplies of food and place the goods in people’s car trunks and truck beds. The drive-through approach lessens the risk of contamination. So far, more than 4,000 families have received the packages.
Meanwhile, Navajo seamstresses have used material purchased by the fund to sew more than 18,000 masks for medical personnel and social service workers on the reservation.
The devastating impact of the coronavirus is no surprise to Begay. She says Navajo people have suffered health and economic disparities since their first contact with white settlers. “Our nation is living in Third World conditions in the most wealthy country in the world.”
