Editorials & Other Articles

Judi Lynn

(160,655 posts) Mon May 11, 2020, 01:53 PM May 2020

Virus rampages across vast Navajo lands, close-knit families

Felicia Fonseca and Tim Sullivan, Associated Press Updated 11:44 am CDT, Monday, May 11, 2020

TUBA CITY, Arizona (AP) — The virus arrived on the reservation in early March, when late winter winds were still blowing off the mesas and temperatures at dawn were often barely above freezing.

It was carried in from Tucson, doctors say, by a man who had been to a basketball tournament and then made the long drive back to a small town in the Navajo highlands. There, believers were preparing to gather in a small, metal-walled church with a battered white bell and crucifixes on the window.

On a dirt road at the edge of the town, a hand-painted sign with red letters points the way: “Chilchinbeto Church of the Nazarene.”

From that church, COVID-19 took hold on the Navajo Nation, hopscotching across families and clans and churches and towns, and leaving the reservation with some of the highest infection rates in the U.S.

More:
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Virus-rampages-across-vast-Navajo-lands-15261353.php

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Virus rampages across vast Navajo lands, close-knit families (Original Post) Judi Lynn May 2020 OP

AP PHOTOS: Volunteers flood Navajo Nation in virus outbreak Judi Lynn May 2020 #1

Goes to show that geography doesn't necessarily mean one is safe from the CV. I think that ... SWBTATTReg May 2020 #2

Judi Lynn

(160,655 posts)

1. AP PHOTOS: Volunteers flood Navajo Nation in virus outbreak

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Mon May 11, 2020, 01:54 PM

May 2020

Carolyn Kaster, Associated Press Updated 11:44 am CDT, Monday, May 11, 2020

Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP
IMAGE 1 OF 26

Agathla Peak is seen through the window of the Kayenta Health Center on the Navajo reservation in Kayenta, Ariz., on April 18, 2020. The reservation has some of the highest rates of coronavirus in the country. Team Rubicon is helping with medical operations as cases of COVID-19 surge.

Under the watchful eye of Agathla Peak and just south of Monument Valley on the Navajo reservation, the Kayenta Health Center struggled under an onslaught of COVID-19.

The center's only ventilator was in use on a patient in late April and, suddenly, the oxygen valve failed. Dennis Grooms of St. Louis spent the next three hours hand-pumping oxygen into the patient’s lungs until he could be flown to a larger medical facility.

“We had to keep him breathing,” said Grooms, an EMT volunteering with the Los Angeles-based Team Rubicon. The disaster relief organization pairs the skills of military veterans with first responders and medical professionals.

After his shift ended, Grooms walked the 10 minutes back to his housing through empty parking lots and quiet playgrounds carrying his uneaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a paper bag. He sprayed his shoes with disinfectant, put his clothes into the washing machine and decompressed while soaking in the bathtub.

More:
https://www.chron.com/news/article/AP-PHOTOS-Volunteers-flood-Navajo-Nation-in-15261368.php

SWBTATTReg

(22,187 posts)

2. Goes to show that geography doesn't necessarily mean one is safe from the CV. I think that ...

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Mon May 11, 2020, 02:02 PM

May 2020

in some states, e.g., out in the western US, in rural parts of the rest of the US, etc., the CV is increasing at pretty high %s, for I think some of these areas felt that they were immune/wouldn't see the CV in their neck of the woods.

I'm keeping an eye on rural areas of MO, and monitoring the spread of the CV in MO. I am seeing some pretty high %s in the spread of the CV, in rural areas of MO, whereas in some urban areas, e.g., STLMO, the level of hospitalizations is dropping/thus more than likely, the rate of CV infections is slowly dropping. STLMO has been stay at home for approximately 7 weeks now.

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