BACKGROUND: American Indians and Alaska Natives have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, with both high rates of infection and risk of severe outcomes, including hospitalization and death. While many Tribal Nations have been leaders in reducing community spread, it’s very important that American Indian and Alaska Native communities receive the vaccine. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to President Biden. Listeners can go to combatcovid.hhs.gov for more information.

SUGGESTED SOUNDBITE: “The rate of hospitalizations per one-hundred thousand population among Native Americans is multi-fold higher than that of whites. The rate of death per hundred-thousand population, death due to COVID-19, is in fact multi-fold higher among Native Americans, and for that reason it’s so important to get vaccines to the Native American population and when the vaccine becomes available to get as many of your individuals in the tribal nation vaccinated as you possibly can, as quickly as you can.”

SUGGESTED SOUNDBITE: “It’s so important to get vaccines to the Native American population and when the vaccine becomes available to get as many of your individuals in the tribal nation vaccinated as you possibly can, as quickly as you can because it’s a highly efficacious, and very safe vaccine. So I just wanted to get the opportunity to tell people in the Native American community why it’s so important for their own health, for that of their family, and for that of their community to get vaccinated when vaccines become available.”

SUGGESTED SOUNDBITE: “The community spirit among the tribal nations is such that when you have something that you realize is important for your health, for that of your family, and for that of your community – I know it’s a close knit community – so perhaps that’s one of the reasons why when something as life-saving as a vaccine comes along, the uptake of it is very smooth and very efficient, so in that respect I think the rest of the country might learn a lesson from how things have gone with the tribal nations.”