Picuris Pueblo fights pandemic with vigilance, hope and prayer
For the people of Picuris Pueblo, the COVID-19 pandemic is as much a fight for survival as the historic battles against Spanish colonists in 1680 and the Comanche raids of the 1700s. The tribe, comprised today of approximately 300 people, is the smallest pueblo in New Mexico and is one of the most vulnerable if the rampant disease were to take hold there.
Fortunately, it hasn’t, according to Picuris Gov. Craig Quanchello. For that, he said he is thankful for the high-level of vigilance and strict policies set by his staff and tribal council governing the comings and goings of tribal members, testing, and now, vaccination.
Quanchello said the tribe has worked with the New Mexico Department of Health to bring mass vaccinations to its members. The first stage inoculations of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine were given Dec. 18, while the second shot was given Tuesday ( Jan. 12). He said the goal is to get at least 70 to 80 percent of tribal members inoculated.
Northeast Regional Public Health Director Nick Boukas said that is an achievable goal given the size of Picuris’ population.
Vaccination choice
Boukas was on-hand at the inoculation clinic Tuesday. Boukas oversees the northeast region for the New Mexico Department of Health, which encompasses 10 counties, “and we work cooperatively with eight Pueblos and one Nation, and they all have
the choice to work with the [Indian Health Service] or Department of Health for their vaccinations.”
Quanchello said the choice to work through the state largely had to do with expedience. Boukas said he and his staff works hard to streamline the application and vaccination process to “meet their needs in a timely fashion.” He added that New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham “has made it a priority that the Native American population has the same access to care, regardless of whether they want to use Indian Health Services or the Department of Health, so, we were trying to accommodate every request they had.”
Taos-Picuris Indian Health Center, located on Spider Rock Road at Taos Pueblo, recently announced it is scheduling appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations. The center is operated as part of the Indian Health Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A request for information on whether a conflict may have led to Gov. Quanchello’s choice of the state Department of Health over IHS went unanswered as of press time.
Quanchello praised health care workers, such as Boukas, who have been tirelessly working to fight the pandemic that has, to date, taken the lives of 2,749 New Mexicans and more than 374,000 nationwide. New cases in the state, however, appear at the moment to be lessening, dropping this week to below 1,000.
“I think we’re holding up good,” Quanchello said.
Immediate action
Back in April, as the pandemic was forcing schools and businesses to close, Quanchello and his staff decided the only way to keep the disease from decimating their population would be to immediately close their borders, limit travel to and from the reservation, and impose a curfew. In addition, those who may have been exposed were told to quarantine.
“We’re the smallest Pueblo in New Mexico,” he said. “And we could be wiped out with the numbers that have been going on, that we see on the news, and the numbers we hear from the other Pueblos. We would have been wiped out that first month, in March. So, it’s been my goal and my council’s goal and my response team’s goal to not let that happen.”
Now, nine months later, he said “For the most part, we’re very blessed and we’re very fortunate that we’ve kept our numbers low, very low. We’ve had very little positives here.”
Culture disrupted
One of the more personal challenges for the people of Picuris has been the way the pandemic has affected the social structure of the Pueblo and, especially, their Native religion. Due to the pandemic, everything has been disrupted.
“We stopped (our cultural activities),” Quanchello said. “We stopped doing our dances, we stopped gathering … It’s been hard on everybody to not do that. But on the other hand, it shows us we need to embrace our language and shows us what we’ve been missing. Our strength, our need to dance, our need to speak and our need to pray, all this stuff is strengthening that, and not taken for granted anymore by the young ones or even the older ones.”
He said it has illustrated to all Native people the dangers of “what we potentially could lose if we don’t come together and fight this virus.”
Asked if he had any idea how long this fight might continue, since it began in early 2020, Quanchello said he thought the pandemic might be under control by the end of the year. “I didn’t think it would be this long. At the time, we saw decreasing numbers, everybody was complying, people were wearing their masks … and it just turned. Now, it’s hard to say when we’re going to get out of this.”
He said he is hopeful that after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are sworn-in Jan. 20, and Laguna Pueblo citizen Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) is confirmed as Biden’s choice to to head up the Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, things will look up for Indian Country as a whole. “It’s lining up,” Quanchello said. “I hope that they follow through on the commitments they make.”
The governor said he also was happy that this break in activity enabled his tribe to finish several infrastructure projects, thanks in part to CARES Act funds. Finishing soon will be a new tribal administration building, a recreation area, improvements to the tribal museum, and a new health station.