Navajo Nation surpasses New York in per capita coronavirus cases

Reservation is worst hit area in the US by population

Navajo Nation has now surpassed New York as the area with the highest amount of coronavirus cases per capita in the US.

As of Monday, the Native American territory in the US that covers parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, reported 4,071 coronavirus cases and 142 deaths.

The area has a population of around 70,000 people, and currently 2.3 per cent of the population has contracted coronavirus.

In New York, which was previously the worst hit area, the percentage of the population who have contracted Covid-19 is lower at 1.8 per cent.

Navajo Nation now has more coronavirus related deaths than more than 13 states in the whole of the US, according to Forbes.

Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders sent a team to Navajo Nation, after the community first became badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The organisation sends doctors to areas of international conflict, and has healthcare professionals stationed in 70 countries worldwide, but very rarely intervenes in the US.

Jean Stowell, who is the head of the organisation’s US based Covid-19 Response Team, told CBS News that Doctors Without Borders needed to intervene.

“There are many situations in which we do not intervene in the United States, but this has a particular risk profile,” she said.

One in three people in the Navajo Nation are estimated to not have access to running water, and because not much grows in the area, communities are heavily dependent on outside help for food.

Ms Stowell added that this means that “situationally, the Native American communities are at a much higher risk for complications from Covid-19 and also from community spread because they don’t have access to the variety of things that make it possible to self-isolate.

“You can’t expect people to isolate if they have to drive 100 miles to get food and water,” Ms Stowell added.

On Tuesday, Dr Aylin Uclu, who is treating patients for coronavirus in Navajo Nation, from closed off motel rooms, told Good Morning America that the virus has spread quickly in the area.

“If you had told me three weeks ago that I would be starting elderly patients in a room by themselves without family members, or supporting them on oxygen, or keeping them in a motel, closed up in a room, I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 1.5 million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached at least 92,149.