As of June 2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 6,585 American Indians and Alaska Natives have died from COVID-19 - the highest rate of any ethnic group in the United States. That estimate likely falls far short of the actual death toll.
From medical health privacy laws to a maze of siloed information systems, a true accounting of COVID-19’s impact on Indian Country is impossible to know.
This story is produced by the Indigenous Investigative Collective, a project of the Native American Journalists Association in partnership with High Country News, Indian Country Today, National Native News and Searchlight New Mexico. It was produced in partnership with MuckRock with the support of JSK-Big Local News. In May of 2020, the Navajo Nation reported […]
From medical health privacy laws to a maze of siloed information systems, a true accounting of COVID-19’s impact on Indian Country is impossible to know.
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In May of 2020, the Navajo Nation reported one of the highest per-capita COVID-19 infection rates in the United States. Since that milestone, official data reveals that the Navajo Nation has been one of the hardest-hit populations during the pandemic. The Navajo Nation boasts the largest population of any Indigenous nation in the United States, and thousands of Navajos live outside the nation, in towns along the border, cities across the country, and in other parts of the world, making it difficult to tally the virus impacts on Navajo citizens.
It s made worse by a labyrinthian system of local, state, federal and tribal data-reporting systems that often do not communicate with each other or share information. In an effort to come up with a more reliable fatality count, reporters with the Indigenous Investigative Collective made multiple public-records requests for death records held by state medical examiners of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Those requests focuse