Items

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  2021-04-14

  News Article: Navajo Nation reports no COVID-19 deaths for 3rd day in row

  Despite very grim months through the last year's COVID-19 pandemic in the Navajo Nation, the Associated Press reported continuing indications of success for the Navajo people and their rural communities: WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) — The Navajo Nation on Tuesday reported two new confirmed COVID-19 cases, but no additional deaths for the third consecutive day. The latest numbers brought the pandemic totals on the tribe’s reservation to 30,269 cases and 1,262 known deaths. Tribal officials had ordered a lockdown last weekend over fears that a new variant could drive another deadly surge. The Stay-At-Home order required all Navajo Nation residents to refrain from unnecessary travel to help limit the spread of the virus, including a new and more contagious strain. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez recently announced the first confirmed case of the COVID-19 B.1.429 variant on the reservation that covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
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  2020-08-07

  Health Insurance Providers mailing reusable masks for medical appointments

  On August 7, 2020 I received a message from a relative that their health insurance company had mailed them a small envelope with a cloth mask. At the time in Oklahoma, masks were still fairly difficult to find in stores and reusable masks were still available mostly online at considerable costs. The elderly relative said that her and her husband were told to use these if they went to a doctor's appointment or to a hospital. The pamphlet also advised them on the best way to wash and dry the mask for further use. This is something that seems like a small cost to the company, but could benefit everyone if it helped prevent people from getting sick, especially from COVID-19.
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  2020-04-16

  Zoom Book Club

  The last time my book club met in person, March 2020, we talked about what we would read next. I noted that I had a few books about pandemics already on my shelves and we should read one of those. Camus' "The Plague", "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" by Katherine Anne Porter, "Journal of the Plague Year" by Daniel Defoe, "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel García Márquez... why did I have so many books about plagues...? We decided on Defoe and I said "Well, maybe we will be meeting by Zoom next time." The group was incredulous (I live in a small rural town in South Dakota) that we wouldn't be able to meet in person in April. If I had read this book in non-plaugue times it certainly would have been good read but it took on a lot of added meaning when I read it at the beginning of the quarantine. Thermometers may change but people never change.