In this post, The Repatriation Files offers links to some of the most recent reporting on the effects of the pandemic on food insecurity in Native American communities.
“Native communities (both urban and rural) are often invisible in “normal” times. This is exacerbated in times of crisis. Native communities are ripe for the effects of COVID-19 to intensify at extraordinary levels”
As the website Health Affairs reports:
Native Americans have many of the risk factors that put them at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19. Heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, and diabetes are leading causes of death among AI/AN and lead to a life expectancy that is 5.5 years less than that for the US all-races population. Natives are twice as likely as whites to have diabetes. Native people die from diabetes at a rate that is 189 percent higher than that for other Americans. In addition, 28.6 percent of AI/AN under age 65 do not have health insurance.
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200331.659944/full/
Marlysa D. Gamblin, writing for Bread for the World, reminds her readers,
Although they were the first communities in what is now known as the United States, Indigenous communities in urban and rural areas are often the last remembered in public policy. This is true particularly in times of crisis, including the current COVID-19 pandemic. As of April 14, 2020, the Indian Health System had confirmed more than 1,100 cases of COVID-19 and more than 20 deaths. In addition, Indigenous people living in urban areas, including Salt Lake City, San Jose, and Seattle, are contracting the virus at high rates. These statistics are expected to continue to worsen.
https://www.bread.org/blog/race-hunger-and-covid-19-impact-indigenous-communities
Olivia Chan and Jamila Taylor of The Century Foundation write,
Although racial data on testing, hospitalizations, and deaths due to COVID-19 are still incomplete, early warnings and reports have shown that low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Native communities have been hit the hardest. Many in these groups are frontline and essential workers who are put at risk when they use public transportation or go to work. Many also live in multigenerational homes, where a working-age adult exposed to the virus could pass it on to seniors and others in their household.
https://tcf.org/content/commentary/covid-19-lays-bare-vulnerabilities-u-s-food-security/?agreed=1
Click this link for a PDF from First Nations Development Institute: https://www.firstnations.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/COVID19-and-Native-Communities-4.17.20_DIGITAL_IS.pdf
Click to access COVID19-and-Native-Communities-4.17.20_DIGITAL_IS.pdf
