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Comment by dmurray | Hacker News Reader

The article doesn't really go into why the reservations were worse hit than other US areas. They are "sovereign" "nations" so surely they have some autonomy to set their own lockdown, travel policies, and other responses to the pandemic.

Did they have even worse governance than the US generally? Or dense living conditions? Or particularly vulnerable age profiles? I get that they're not generally wealthy, but probably wealthier than places like Vietnam and Mongolia which contained the spread very well.

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Several native nations traded their land for the promise of acceptable healthcare as part of treaties, which has not been held up to standard.[0]

Additionally, native nations in fact have tried to set their own lockdown and travel policies. State governments have threatened them for doing so.[1]

[0]. "For Native Americans, Health Care Is A Long, Hard Road Away" - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/13/4738483...

[1]. "'I’m protecting my people': Tribal citizens defend coronavirus checkpoints amid threat from state" - https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/05/11/im-protecting-my-peo...

I could see that affecting death rate, but not the rate of infection/spreading.

You don't see how attempts to shut down travel within one's borders being challenged by governments with significant clout affect the rate of infection and spread?

Think a lot of people in the same house for a large group of it.

Having lived on reservations, Navajo Nation being one of them, I'd opine that the co-morbidities are the main contributing factor. The diabetes rates on the rez are many times that of the US population as are the rates of alcoholism. Also households are very often multi-generational and more crowded than in the US.

Yes, they do have their own lockdown policies. On a drive in western NC this past month, we had to turn around as the Qualla Boundary was blocked by tribal police.

I grew up in Farmington, this was my first thought, but also the rate of homelessness off the rez has always been very high (also with the same comorbidities), throw in the drop in oil price over the last 5 years, you have an area with additional economic depression.

The Navajo reservation is one of the least densely populated parts of the country so that's not it. Lack of infrastructure is a bigger issue. Many if not most of these people live close to the poverty line and so don't have many options with regard to quarantine. It's not like they can stock up and stay inside for a month.

It's also not like the nation can just isolate from the rest of the country. Much of the nation lives and/or works off of the reservation in nearby towns and cities. Bear in mind that by-and-large, the Navajo are not living a traditional subsistence lifestyle anymore. They simply don't have the land or resources to do that so the reservations are not self-sufficient.

From a news story here in Canada about Navajo - their nation is a "food desert" so people have to keep driving to the cities to buy everything, exposing themselves in the process (can't do Foodora/Uber Eats/Instacart). Lack of PPE seems to be a general problem as well.

Health care on reservations is already generally far below most US standards, and then they aren't receiving much of the federal/state support specifically for this.

Reservations basically operate with only the local government. Imagine your town trying to source all the required goods themselves while there's a supply shortage.

Some tribes (Navajo Nation included) are still receiving direct health care. There's a huge hospital in Gallup, NM, as well as another in Shiprock. Health care is supplied by the federal Indian Health Services (of HHS). In no way should this be construed as "far below" most US Standards. Other tribes have opted out of direct health care preferring to receive Title 638 funds to administer for their health care. These tribes' health care naturally varies with the way the individual tribes administer their programs. The Navajo Nation is larger than the state of West Virginia, so the analogy of town-level government wouldn't seem to apply.

The Navajo Nation is the largest and most populous tribe by far, but it still wouldn't be one of the 100 most populous cities in America.

That said, I've only been on reservations in the Midwest. Other tribes may not face the same terrible conditions.

We lived on the line of Leech Lake Reservation (near Cass Lake, MN) but except for that and the Crow Reservation, the rest of our reservation experiences were in the southwest. (IHS hospital/clinics)

Yes, they're all different; laws, customs, landscape, tribal government, etc; more than most people might imagine.

Anecdotal:

My mother-in-law works at a hospital adjacent to a large reservation. They're treating large numbers of natives.

She says people from the reservation refuse to practice any social distancing or wear PPE.

Reservations are prisoner of war camps from the 19th century that persist to this day. It is more illuminating to compare them to other similarly situated people around the world in terms of their social services and freedom to develop self governance

It's more complicated than that, at least now. Having land, even crummy land away from the ancestral homeland, is better than not having land, because:

a) you can afford to live there, as an extremely economically disadvantaged group.

b) your tribe is in one place, instead of scattered, which makes it possible to continue to have a group identity and

c) you have at least limited autonomy.

I know people in tribes that have been shafted by the BIA and refused official recognition or land. It hurts. See the documentary "Promised Land" [0] for their account.

0. https://www.promisedlanddoc.com/

A) in utter poverty created by the wars to expel and corral them into small, infertile, resourceless areas

B) It is good to be with your folks, I agree, even when forced into captivity together

C) their autonomy is violated essentially at whim by the fed, state, and local governments since the reservation system was created. You can see this happening now with Gov Noam in South Dakota and the Lakota

Oh, I'm totally in agreement that the situation is unfair and that the US government engaged in genocide and cultural extermination of native peoples, and that reservations were created as ghettos for Indians so the whites could take their desirable lands. I am merely pointing out that there are tribes that have been denied federal recognition or reservations and want them, because a crappy deal is still better than no deal.

Sure. But I was responding to the initial comment suggesting that the overwhelming spread in their community represented a failure of governance on their part in comparison to national governments like Vietnam

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