A recent “Rural Assembly Roundtable” featured Tribal leaders from Coeur d’Alene, Gila River, Walker River Paiute and the Navajo Nation. Discussions during the roundtable focused on Indigenous peoples’ response to the pandemic, the challenges the health emergency placed on Tribes, and the growing success in Tribal vaccination rates.

Candalerian Preston, director of the Gila River Tribal Health Department, credited large mobile vaccination units and local community knowledge for its successful vaccination campaign. She also noted that the Tribe actively travelled to homes for vaccinations, instead of establishing a vaccination center.

Shaandiin Parrish—Miss Navajo Nation 2020-2021—stressed educating the younger Tribe members to protect the elders at all costs. The Navajo Nation had some of the worst infection and death rates in the U.S. Today, nearly 90 percent of Navajo citizens have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

You can read more from The Daily Yonder here: https://dailyyonder.com/rural-assembly-everywhere-how-tribes-achieved-record-breaking-vaccination-levels/2021/04/21/