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Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

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Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#21

Post by voyager2 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #11
dmurray wrote: post #4

The article doesn't really go into why the reservations were worse hit than other US areas. They are "sovereign" "nations" so surely they have some autonomy to set their own lockdown, travel policies, and other responses to the pandemic. Did they have even worse governance than the US generally? Or dense living conditions? Or particularly vulnerable age profiles? I get that they're not generally wealthy, but probably…

Health care on reservations is already generally far below most US standards, and then they aren't receiving much of the federal/state support specifically for this. Reservations basically operate with only the local government. Imagine your town trying to source all the required goods themselves while there's a supply shortage.

Some tribes (Navajo Nation included) are still receiving direct health care. There's a huge hospital in Gallup, NM, as well as another in Shiprock. Health care is supplied by the federal Indian Health Services (of HHS). In no way should this be construed as "far below" most US Standards. Other tribes have opted out of direct health care preferring to receive Title 638 funds to administer for their health care. These tribes' health care naturally varies with the way the individual tribes administer their programs. The Navajo Nation is larger than the state of West Virginia, so the analogy of town-level government wouldn't seem to apply.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#22

Post by sterlind »

kingkawn wrote: post #6
dmurray wrote: post #4

The article doesn't really go into why the reservations were worse hit than other US areas. They are "sovereign" "nations" so surely they have some autonomy to set their own lockdown, travel policies, and other responses to the pandemic. Did they have even worse governance than the US generally? Or dense living conditions? Or particularly vulnerable age profiles? I get that they're not generally wealthy, but probably…

Reservations are prisoner of war camps from the 19th century that persist to this day. It is more illuminating to compare them to other similarly situated people around the world in terms of their social services and freedom to develop self governance

It's more complicated than that, at least now. Having land, even crummy land away from the ancestral homeland, is better than not having land, because:

a) you can afford to live there, as an extremely economically disadvantaged group.

b) your tribe is in one place, instead of scattered, which makes it possible to continue to have a group identity and

c) you have at least limited autonomy.

I know people in tribes that have been shafted by the BIA and refused official recognition or land. It hurts. See the documentary "Promised Land" [0] for their account.

0. https://www.promisedlanddoc.com/

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#23

Post by astine »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #15
dmurray wrote: post #4

The article doesn't really go into why the reservations were worse hit than other US areas. They are "sovereign" "nations" so surely they have some autonomy to set their own lockdown, travel policies, and other responses to the pandemic. Did they have even worse governance than the US generally? Or dense living conditions? Or particularly vulnerable age profiles? I get that they're not generally wealthy, but probably…

[flagged]

I couldn't find any reference to recent white power marches in Farmington NM. https://www.daily-times.com/news/ Do you have any references to that that isn't a clipping from a FB post? I'd be genuinely interested.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#24

Post by gpm »

dghughes wrote: post #3

About ten years ago H1N1 hit First Nations people really hard here in Canada. About 1/3 of the hospitalizations were First Nations women. PDF http://www.nccah-ccnsa.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/At...

> About 1/3 of the hospitalizations were First Nations women.

Huh? That doesn't sound right.... and indeed looking at your source it isn't... but in some sense it looks like it might actually be worse than that

> Indigenous people accounted for 27.8% of all hospital admissions reported to PHAC during the first wave, but only 6.1% of hospital admissions during the second wave (Helferty et al., 2010).

Less than a third of hospitalizations were indigenous people (both genders), it seems, and later

> Rolland Harris et al. (2012), for example, found that Indigenous women accounted for 16.2% of hospitalized cases, [... continued below]

So indigenous women are 1/6th of hospitalizations (which makes sense with 1/3rd of hospitalization being indigenous people). But

> [... direct continuation of previous quote] 18.2% of ICU cases, and 50% of fatalities attributed to H1N1 influenza of those reporting ethnicity across Canada when both waves of the pandemic were combined.

Indigenous women were half of the total deaths???

I feel like something weird must be going on with these statistics.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#25

Post by BurningFrog »

crmrc114 wrote: post #9
BurningFrog wrote: post #5

PSA: Vitamin D deficiency is a strong factor, not for getting Covid-19, but for bad outcomes. It's especially common for people with dark skin, since that blocks the ability of producing Vitamin D from sunlight. If that's part of what's happening to the Navajo, I don't know, but you should probably eat Vitamin D pills, especially during this indoor lockdown, and if if you have dark skin.

https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/15/bmjnph-20... "There is no strong scientific evidence to show that very high intakes (ie, mega supplements) of vitamin D will be beneficial in preventing or treating COVID-19."

The virus is a few months old.

Strong scientific evidence usually takes a lot longer than that to establish.

Also: I'm not advocating "very high" doses. A normal daily supplement dose should be just fine.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#26

Post by boomboomsubban »

voyager2 wrote: post #21
boomboomsubban wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care on reservations is already generally far below most US standards, and then they aren't receiving much of the federal/state support specifically for this. Reservations basically operate with only the local government. Imagine your town trying to source all the required goods themselves while there's a supply shortage.

Some tribes (Navajo Nation included) are still receiving direct health care. There's a huge hospital in Gallup, NM, as well as another in Shiprock. Health care is supplied by the federal Indian Health Services (of HHS). In no way should this be construed as "far below" most US Standards. Other tribes have opted out of direct health care preferring to receive Title 638 funds to administer for their health care. These…

The Navajo Nation is the largest and most populous tribe by far, but it still wouldn't be one of the 100 most populous cities in America.

That said, I've only been on reservations in the Midwest. Other tribes may not face the same terrible conditions.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#27

Post by Kye »

scottLobster wrote: post #19
BurningFrog wrote: post #5

PSA: Vitamin D deficiency is a strong factor, not for getting Covid-19, but for bad outcomes. It's especially common for people with dark skin, since that blocks the ability of producing Vitamin D from sunlight. If that's part of what's happening to the Navajo, I don't know, but you should probably eat Vitamin D pills, especially during this indoor lockdown, and if if you have dark skin.

Joe Rogan had Dr Rhonda Patrick on a few days ago and gave a detailed rundown of the research into vitamin D vs Covid/respiratory illness in general, among other topics (timestamped to the start of Vitamin D talk but the whole podcast is definitely worth a listen) https://youtu.be/4_ZJ8YDOX6g?t=1771 Vitamin D insufficiency has been strongly correlated to COVD-19 deaths and severe symptoms in various locations, althou…

This link will probably not work once his exclusivity deal kicks in.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#28

Post by pmachinery »

crmrc114 wrote: post #9
BurningFrog wrote: post #5

PSA: Vitamin D deficiency is a strong factor, not for getting Covid-19, but for bad outcomes. It's especially common for people with dark skin, since that blocks the ability of producing Vitamin D from sunlight. If that's part of what's happening to the Navajo, I don't know, but you should probably eat Vitamin D pills, especially during this indoor lockdown, and if if you have dark skin.

https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/15/bmjnph-20... "There is no strong scientific evidence to show that very high intakes (ie, mega supplements) of vitamin D will be beneficial in preventing or treating COVID-19."

He wasn't saying high intakes of vitamin D would prevent or treat COVID-19, he was alluding to a belief that vitamin D deficiency reduces the chances of recovery from COVID-19. Obviously to correct vitamin D deficiency people require high intakes.

It's not good for people to be just advising "eat vitamin D" though.

People should consult a doctor to determine a) to what extent they are deficient (or not), and b) that they have no health issues that make taking vitamin D dangerous.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#29

Post by danans »

BurningFrog wrote: post #5

PSA: Vitamin D deficiency is a strong factor, not for getting Covid-19, but for bad outcomes. It's especially common for people with dark skin, since that blocks the ability of producing Vitamin D from sunlight. If that's part of what's happening to the Navajo, I don't know, but you should probably eat Vitamin D pills, especially during this indoor lockdown, and if if you have dark skin.

> Vitamin D deficiency is a strong factor, not for getting Covid-19, but for bad outcomes.

It might be a strong factor - this isn't yet demonstrated conclusively by enough peer reviewed studies yet, so it shouldnt be described as conclusive. Thankfully, there a long history of vitamin D supplementation, so unlike hydroxychloroquine, it isn't likely to increase death rates. At worst it might just do nothing.

Also, a number of common foods contain or are supplemented with vitamin D. Assuming that somebody has no fundamental issues with vitamin D absorption from food, a typical healthy diet that includes some of those foods should be sufficient to keep a person out of vitamin D deficiency, with no pill-based supplement needed.

Re: Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

#30

Post by danharaj »

gpm wrote: post #24
dghughes wrote: post #3

About ten years ago H1N1 hit First Nations people really hard here in Canada. About 1/3 of the hospitalizations were First Nations women. PDF http://www.nccah-ccnsa.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/At...

> About 1/3 of the hospitalizations were First Nations women. Huh? That doesn't sound right.... and indeed looking at your source it isn't... but in some sense it looks like it might actually be worse than that > Indigenous people accounted for 27.8% of all hospital admissions reported to PHAC during the first wave, but only 6.1% of hospital admissions during the second wave (Helferty et al., 2010). Less than a third…

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/ottawa-sends-body-ba...
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