MedCity News July 27, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t quite over yet, which means there’s no better time to implement transformative healthcare strategies in Indigenous communities.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it – at least, according to philosopher George Santayana. Most of us simply shorten that to say that history repeats itself. But is it true when it comes to healthcare? A look at Native American history suggests it is.
During the 1918 flu pandemic, the global fatality rate ranged from 2.5 percent to 5 percent. For Navajo Nation, though, the fatality rate hit a whopping 12%. If that sounds familiar, it’s because a century later, Native American reservations again suffered through catastrophically high Covid-19 infection and fatality rates, compared...