Cases near 2,500; no new deaths

Posted by Arlyssa Becenti | May 5, 2020 | CORONAVIRUS, News |

WINDOW ROCK

As of Monday, the total number of positive COVID-19 cases for the Navajo Nation has reached 2,474, or nearly 1.5 percent of the reservation population.

A total of 14,351 COVID-19 tests have been administered with 9,254 negative test results as previously reported.

On Saturday, the Navajo Nation President’s Office and Navajo Department of Health first sent out two different total cases numbers but in the end Navajo Department of Health sent out a correction stating its release was wrong.

McKinley County, New Mexico, continued to be the hot spot with 641 cases on the Navajo Nation, followed by Apache County, Arizona with 560, most of those in Central Agency.

Navajo and Coconino counties, the former hot spots, have started to level off with Navajo at 525 and Coconino at 292. According to President Jonathan Nez, emergency room visits at Tuba City Regional Health Care Center have dropped by 30 percent since their peak.

The Utah portion of the reservation has seen 43 cases so far while across the state line in San Juan County, New Mexico, the number rose to 247.

The satellite reservations of Ramah, Alamo and Tohajilee held steady with fewer than 25 cases each in Cíbola, Socorro and Sandoval counties.

Overall, the rate of new cases on the Navajo Nation is dropping with 101 new cases reported over the weekend and no new deaths. The high was more than 180 new cases in a day.

Gallup remains closed to outside traffic until noon on Thursday in an effort to stem the spread between city residents and people in the outlying areas coming in to shop.

The Navajo Nation as well as at least 10 grassroots groups continued to distribute food in the remote communities to prevent elders and quarantined families from having to come to town to shop.