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First Lady Jill Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) are the latest high-profile Democrats to visit Wisconsin, in support of re-electing President Joe Biden next year.
Chuck Quirmbach reports on a trip aimed at reinforcing Native American support for the President.
The first lady and the interior secretary spent about three hours touring a Menominee-owned saw mill and a tribal college garden where sustainable agriculture is taught – and speaking at a Native women’s empowerment summit.
First Lady Biden told the conference that President Joe Biden has invested millions of federal dollars to help tribes
“Joe and I stand with you and all of Indian country as we build a brighter future together. “
Sec. Haaland spoke about creating partnerships between the bureau of Indian affairs and philanthropic groups.
“I’m excited that as one of the first partnerships the bureau of Indian education is working with the trust for public lands to build nine new school yards in tribal communities. That includes a new school yard at the Menominee Tribal school right here.”
Sec. Haaland and First Lady Biden were greeted warmly.
Tribal member Marsha Uutela says the Biden administration is moving in the right direction. But Uutela says Menominee county which overlaps the reservation often ranks as the least healthy of Wisconsin’s 72 counties and has the highest poverty rate.
“I’ve lived through the results of being the 72 out of 72. There’s still a lot that needs to be done.”
The overwhelming Menominee count for President Biden in the 2020 Presidential election is one of the reasons he narrowly carried Wisconsin.
Now the Biden family is hoping it is earned tribal members continued support.
Courtesy University of New Mexico
Researchers at the University of New Mexico (UNM) have found that COVID-19 hit American Indian and Alaska Native patients hard – even inside the university’s hospital.
Emma VandenEinde of the Mountain West News Bureau reports.
The researchers met with around 500 patients admitted from 2020 to 2021.
They found a disproportionate number of Indigenous individuals were admitted both in and outside of the ICU, with more than half developing severe COVID-19.
They also would stay twice as long at the hospital and were more likely to be put on a ventilator.
DJ Perkins is a Professor of Medicine and Director of UNM’s Center for Global Health. He says even though this population had low rates of other diseases that could exacerbate the virus, they still faced a high risk.
“The strongest predictor of severe disease and it was about three fold higher, was self identified as American-Indian, Alaska Native.”
Some causes behind these numbers could be lack of access to health care facilities and poor living conditions created by forced government relocation to reservations.
Perkins says one way to turn the numbers around is making sure booster shots and testing sites are more available.
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