How the Pandemic Shortened Life Expectancies Among Indigenous Communities

Carol Schumacher, 56, who was raised in the remote community of Chilchinbeto in the Navajo Nation, has lost 42 family members to Covid-19 over the last two years. The dead included two brothers aged 55 and 54, and cousins as young as 18 and 19.

Ms. Schumacher returned to the Navajo Nation from her home in Wisconsin this summer to grieve with family. She knew what to expect, having grown up on the reservation in Arizona. But what she saw left her reeling.

The nearest hospital was a long drive away on dirt roads, she said, “and there’s no guarantee about the quality of care there even if you make it in time. Some families don’t even have transportation or running water. Imagine dealing with that.”

Now federal health researchers have put a number to the misery that Ms. Schumacher and so many other families in Native communities experienced in the first two years of the pandemic.

Read more in the New York Times. 

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