The Hidden Pandemic: COVID-19 in Native Communities

    While the world faces one pandemic, the United States (US) is facing two. Since the founding of the country the US has wrestled with racism against Native Americans and COVID-19 has brought to light the effects this has had on the community. Currently the Navajo Nation and other reservations have the highest rates of COVID-19 despite having significantly lower population density than big cities such as New York City. This is happening due to a lack of infrastructure and funding as a result of genocidal policies passed by the US government for generations. Which is a direct continuation of the attempts to take lands from native reservations to gain mineral and resource rights demonstrating a reason to refuse aid to native communities. So while it is true that the USA has failed to take action to protect their own people against COVID-19; they have actively made it worse for native communities through a history of anti-native policy that prevented development resulting in the structural and funding issues that have led to the high rates of COVID-19.

The US has also been violating Native Land treaties by trying to gain mineral and land rights to these reservations. The motive for this is that according to The US Department of Energy said these lands are estimated to contain “approximately 30 percent of the coal reserves in the Western U.S., 50 percent of potential uranium reserves, and 20 percent of the known oil and gas reserves in the U.S. ...worth approximately $1.5 trillion;” (Lhamon, et al, 177). Then more recently with the development of the Dakota Access pipeline, and Trump's administration threatening to take lands for oil drilling and resource extraction, these issues of lands have become emboldened. The recent US want for land is important to understand because it provides a reason for why the US has abandoned the people in the reservations during this pandemic. COVID-19’s destruction of these communities is directly beneficial to the US since if these communities weaken it becomes easier for them to take more land and gain access to the resources. Similarly to the establishment of the US, disease is once again being used as a weapon against Native communities to further the taking of land.