Improving testing for COVID-19 for the rural Southwestern American Indian tribes

Abstract

No abstract available. Article truncated after 150 words. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2 (SARS–CoV-2) infection. The United States (US) currently has more officially reported cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any other country in the world. The rural Southwestern American Indian (SAI) tribes are disproportionately affected, due to genetics, immunological naivety, social determinants of health, and high prevalence of concomitant comorbidities and co-exposures (1). On March 30, 2020, the New Mexico Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, informed the US President Donald Trump of the “incredible spikes” in cases of COVID-19 within the Navajo Nation in the rural Four Corners region of the American Southwest (2). The Governor warned that the disease “. could wipe out those tribal nations.” Use of COVID-19 testing as an approach to combating the pandemic is supported by an Iceland-based epidemiological study, and endorsed by the World Health Organization (3). Rural states in the US rank …