COVID-19 has killed Native Americans at twice the rate of White Americans, underscoring the health inequities and deep-rooted distrust tribal nations have of federal government entities.
And yet, Native Americans have the highest vaccination rates of any major racial or ethnic group in the United States. Like many other tribal nations, the Navajo had to embrace Western science to reclaim its social customs and ceremonies. "We're a very social culture, so having to isolate really impacted our mental health," said Mary Hasbah Roessel, MD, DLFAPA, a Navajo psychiatrist who is affiliated with Santa Fe Indian Hospital in New Mexico….
Those are the introductory paragraphs to AN INTERVIEW with Dr. Roessel at Medscape (wikipedia), a free professional-level medical news & journal reprint & resource site open to all, you just need to register — the form comes up when you click on a Medscape link. This news article is a very worthwhile read. One particular passage:
In our Navajo culture, we've dealt with monsters before. We talk about that in terms of how we teach our young people to be strong and resilient. We talked about this virus as being another monster we had to tackle and control. … We've dealt with this before, and we can handle it.