Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said the "Stay home, stay safe" message from the tribal government guarantees that businesses in the nation have the "the safest environment" compared to those outside its tribal lands during the pandemic.
The Navajo Nation announced Tuesday it's used 98% of the COVID-19 vaccine doses it's received.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said in a virtual town hall Tuesday that the Navajo Nation's received 78,520 doses and 77,074 of the those have been administered. He said he's still pushing for a total of 100,000 doses to be administered by the end of February.
"This weekend alone, ladies and gentlemen — one day, Saturday — Navajo Nation vaccinated over 5,000 people — in one day," Nez said. "Just imagine what other weekends the numbers could be."
He said this week another 28,925 vaccine doses are expected.
Tammy Littrell, the Acting Regional Administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Monday during President Joe Biden's virtual tour of a mass vaccination center in Glendale that it's adding four more vaccination centers throughout the Navajo Nation.
The Navajo Nation and other tribes will soon split hundreds of millions in federal COVID-19 relief from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act passed in December 2020, according to a press release from the Navajo Nation.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is giving Indian Health Services — the federal agency responsible for the health care of those tribes — $210 million for vaccine-related activities and another $790 million to help with COVID-19 testing. President Nez said that this federal aid will be split across 574 federally recognized tribes in the country and whatever amount the Navajo Nation gets will help relieve health care workers.
"I know that they're not going to admit that they're not tired, but we know that they have been doing 100%, 100% all this time," Nez said.
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