SHIPROCK, N.M. (Reuters) – To the noise of birdsong on rolling meadow, a pickup crawls up a dirt track to bring firewood and food to a Navajo family of 7 whose father died of the coronavirus hours previously.
Five young relief workers, wearing masks and gloves, unload the provisions at the door for the now quarantined family. It is the very first death the mostly female volunteers said they had been called to in this northern location of the nation, the largest Native American booking in the United States. The household, who live on the plains south of Shiprock, asked that their names and location not be utilized.
Like African-Americans and Hispanics in the United States, Navajos are suffering a disproportionately high rate of coronavirus deaths, two times the nationwide per capita rate, according to Navajo Department of Health data.
The people, who refer to themselves as the Diné, has high rates of diabetes, heart disease and weight problems – underlying conditions that increase threat of severe problems from COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Numerous leaders talked to by Reuters in the typically matriarchal society say they are trying to support a growing number of families quarantined in their homes.
” This is what we’re here for, as youths, to be able to compromise ourselves, compromise our well-being, so that more individuals don’t get ill,” said Kim Smith, 36, who drives the group’s blue Dodge Ram pickup and runs the relief operation from a farm in Hogback, New Mexico.
The pandemic has actually shown stark inequalities in healthcare, housing and basic services in between the Navajo Country and the states of New Mexico