The first doses of the coronavirus vaccine are being administered in Native American communities from the desert highlands of New Mexico to a coastal fishing tribe outside Seattle as the federal government and states rush to protect one of the most vulnerable US populations.
The two-pronged effort includes a massive logistical operation by the federal government’s Indian Health Service focusing on vaccinating health care workers at sovereign Indigenous nation clinics across the country and urban clinics serving off-reservation Native Americans.
The agency’s initial allotment of about 22,000 vaccine doses from Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech arrived Monday at distribution centres on vast portions of the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico and in urban places like Phoenix, where hundreds of health care workers who care for Native Americans got vaccinated on Thursday.