Kansas Medical Volunteers Assist With Navajo Nation's Profound Response To COVID-19

By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

April 26, 2021

TOPEKA — Olathe physician Gary Morsch credits the Navajo Nation’s collective sense of community for countering its high COVID-19 infection rate through adherence to public health mandates, an aggressive vaccination program and collaboration with medical volunteers that included the Kansas-based COVID Care Force.

Morsch, founder of the relief organization Heart to Heart International and an executive at the staffing firm Docs Who Care, brought insight from those medical operations together when forming a program of Volunteers with Heart called COVID Care Force to dispatch personnel into pandemic hotspots.

COVID Care Force’s volunteers responded last year to the Navajo Nation due to the reservation’s high per-capita infection rate. In June, the reservation’s infection rate for COVID-19 was estimated at 3.4% while the rate in New York state was less than 2%.

Morsch said on the KU Hospital System’s broadcast devoted to COVID-19 that he was working as a volunteer physician in New York City when a Navajo council member called with a plea for help. He was told Navajo elders were suffering amid a shortage of medical supplies as well as doctors and nurses.

“They said, ‘Our elders are dying and the elders are the ones that carry the language and the stories. We’re losing a generation,'” Morsch said. “I thought, this is the time to be all in.”

He said Navajo tribal leaders responded to the pandemic by imposing a mask mandate, stay-at-home order, nighttime curfew and restricting traffic on the reservation. These limitations were more difficult to follow on a reservation covering 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico in which perhaps one-third of residents don’t have running water and many others lack electricity, he said.

However, he said, tribal government orders offered the reservation breathing space until vaccines arrived. Half the reservation’s 91,000 residents have now been fully vaccinated, which surpasses the 27% vaccination rates in the United States and in Kansas.

“They have stopped COVID on their reservation,” Morsch said. “They’ll get to herd immunity before the rest of the country. The reason it worked is the Navajo people respect their leaders. They respect their community. It’s all about the greater good. It’s not, ‘What is my right?'”

On Thursday, the Navajo Department of Health reported 15 new COVID-19 cases for the Navajo Nation and no recent fatalities linked to the coronavirus. The department said the Navajo Nation had documented 30,400 cases of COVID-19 and 1,263 fatalities.

“We are making good progress, but we are not out of the pandemic yet,” Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said in a statement. “Our goal is to reach herd immunity and vaccinations are key to achieving that goal. We have to keep our guard up, especially if you need to travel. Our people are doing a good job, but we have to remain diligent and keep taking all precautions.”

At a time when many states have decided to reduce COVID-19 restrictions, Nez urged Navajo Nation members to stay home as much as possible, avoid large in-person gatherings, wear a mask, practice social distancing and wash hands often.

In Kansas, Morsch said COVID Care Force volunteers responded during the past year to 30 sites and served an estimated 250,000 people. The organization has participated in large vaccination drives, most recently in Lee’s Summit, Mo.

“We have been on the front lines,” he said. “Where there’s a hot spot we’ve tried to respond with volunteers. I’m thankful for the generosity of people — their time and their money.”

This story was originally published by Kansas Reflector For more stories from the Kansas Reflector visit Kansas Reflector.