Hard-hit Navajo Nation to receive $600M in COVID-19 support
May 7, 2020, 11:00 AM
(Wikipedia Photo/Gerd Muller)
(Wikipedia Photo/Gerd Muller)
PHOENIX – The Navajo Nation in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico has been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic and will get $600 million to help battle the deadly virus.
The Navajo Nation has recorded 2,654 positive cases of COVID-19 cases with 85 deaths as of Wednesday.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced tribal coronavirus relief funding would be released.
Trump said during his visit to Phoenix that the Gila River Indian Community will initially receive $40 million.
The Gila River community has tested more than 1,100 citizens with 44 positives and one 1 death.
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“The administration is deploying the full resources of the federal government to support and protect our Native American communities in this very grave time of need,” Trump said.
The president said the federal funding to the Navajo Nation and Gila River Indian Community was the largest investment “in Indian country in our history.
“The amount of money being sent to Indian country as we call it is the largest amount in the history of the U.S. and you deserve it. You’ve been through a lot.”
Trump said the federal funds will help protect citizens against “the scourge, this plague, from what we’re all fighting in this country. Should have never happened. Should have been contained from where it came.”
