American Indians have the highest COVID vaccination rate in the US

American Indians have the highest COVID vaccination rate in the US | PBS

According to CDC data, Indigenous people are getting vaccinated quicker than any other group. Here are the successes—and challenges—of getting vaccines to urban Native American communities.

Before getting vaccinated against COVID-19 was an option, Francys Crevier was afraid to leave her Maryland home.

She ordered all of her groceries and limited her time outside, knowing that each venture would put both herself and her immunocompromised mother, with whom Crevier shares her home, at risk. Knowing she could provide for Mom was “a blessing, for sure,” Crevier says. After all, American Indians and Alaska Natives were hospitalized and died from COVID-19 at a higher rate than any other racial group in America throughout the pandemic, says Crevier, who’s Algonquin.

“As a Native woman, I didn’t know if I was going to make it through this,” she says.

Indeed, the U.S. Indigenous population had more than 3.5 times the infection rate, more than four times the hospitalization rate, and a higher mortality rate than white Americans, reports the Indian Health Service (IHS), a federal health program for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Official data reveal that the Navajo Nation, the largest tribe in the U.S., has been one of the hardest-hit populations, reporting one of the country’s highest per-capita COVID-19 infection rates in May 2020, the Navajo Times reports…

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