Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Special COVID-19 Video Message from Leo Yankton (Oglala Lakota)

Leo Yankton Leo Yankton

We’ve asked spiritual, cultural and community leaders from many tribes to share a message about how we can all cope and respond to COVID-19. Please watch this Message of Reason with Leo Yankton concerning COVID-19 – from the Oglala Lakota Tribe.

To watch the video featuring Leo Yankton of the Oglala Lakota tribe, click here.

As of January 27, the number of cases of COVID-19 among the Indian community has increased.

This data includes 175,708 positive tests for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to updated information from Indian Health Service (Department of Health and Human Services).

This data is updated three times per week and examines the positive tests results from 13 regional IHS areas including Alaska, California and the Great Plains. The Indian Health Service is working to coordinate a comprehensive public health response during the pandemic and is cooperating with our tribal partners as well as state and local health officials. Information is voluntarily provided from IHS, tribal and urban Indian organizations to Indian Health Service, which then compiles all the data.

Since mid-October, the IHS has shared positive infection rates as well as information about the spread of COVID-19 to the public. The highest infections rates are currently in three areas, two of them in Arizona, where there is a 16.9 percent positivity rate in the Navajo area with 977 deaths and a 15.6 percent positivity rate in the Phoenix area over the past week. There is also a 16.3 percent positivity rate in the Oklahoma City area.

To watch other special video messages, click on the links below:

To watch the video featuring Dorothy White Horn of the Kiowa Tribe click here.

To watch the video featuring Blas Preciado of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma click here.

To watch the video featuring Freida Jacques of the Onondaga Nation click here.

To watch the video featuring Jessica White Plume of the Lakota tribe on how to make homemade masks, click here.

To watch the video featuring Robert Old Horn of Crow Nation in English, click here and in Crow, click here.

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.