Deer dancer statue outside of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe's administration building.
The Pascua Yaqui government has announced the University of Arizona will be providing it with COVID-19 detection and antibody tests, allowing for more tribal members and employees to be tested for the new coronavirus.
The tribe’s chairman, Robert Valencia, announced in a Facebook video that during a call with the university’s president last week, Robert Robbins agreed to give the Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1,500 COVID-19 test kits. Valencia also said that the tribe’s executive director of health, Reuben Howard, is working out a deal with the university to get COVID-19 antibody tests.
“There are those people that are going to come to our aid, not to our rescue, but to our aid. They’re going to be helping us, so that we can help our people,” Valencia said while sharing what former leaders told him about believing in the Yaqui religion and cultural practices.
Valencia said the tribe purchased around 20 COVID-19 tests itself at the start of the outbreak but quickly used them. Indian Health Services, the federal department responsible for providing health care to tribal members on and off reservations, allocated 48 tests and a rapid test machine. Valencia said IHS would replenish any tests the tribal government uses.
Valencia says the few dozen tests the tribe now has are not enough to meet the need to test the more than 2,000 people working for the tribal government and approximately 5,500 people in Yaqui communities.
“We expect that we’re going to use them all and, of course, need more in order to be able to continue the testing,” Valencia said in an interview Wednesday.
Pascua Yaqui Health Services is offering COVID-19 screening and testing to tribal members, and employees working for the casinos, tribal government, and Pascua Yaqui Development Corporation and its subsidiaries. Tribal officials have said in past briefings that the screenings would be strict.
He says as of Wednesday 12 tribal members who live on and off the reservation had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Valencia signed an executive order Tuesday to extend the tribe’s stay-at-home order and its curfew to mid-May.
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