Navajo Nation enacts weekend curfews
Navajo Nation leaders announced on Tuesday that more 57-hour, weekend-long curfews would be implemented the next two weekends in addition to an outside travel advisory as Arizona’s number of known cases of the new coronavirus continues to spike.
“With the state of Arizona relaxing its precautions and allowing its stay-at-home order to expire, the metropolitan areas are seeing dramatic increases of COVID-19 cases. I cannot stress enough to our Navajo people the importance of staying home,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez in a statement released Tuesday.
“It only takes a few people traveling to Phoenix or other hotspots to catch the virus and start another wave of new cases here on the Navajo Nation. If we stay at home and limit all travels, we can beat this virus.”
The tribe’s lockdown will begin at 8 p.m. Friday and end 5 a.m. Monday for the next two weekends starting June 19. Additional lockdowns may follow, according to the Navajo Department of Health order.
The upcoming emergency order will require residents to stay home during lockdown hours except in the case of an emergency, if they are an essential employee, to vote, to cultivate food, to tend to livestock and to exercise, the order states.
All essential businesses, including all stores, gas stations, restaurants and drive-through food establishments, will also be required to close during the 57hour curfews.
The health order advises the public to avoid travel off the Navajo Nation.
The tribe’s previous curfews each began at 8 p.m. Fridays and ended at 5 a.m. Mondays. Beginning on Easter weekend, the Navajo Nation had eight consecutive 57-hour weekend curfews, requiring all residents except essential employees or those traveling for an emergency to stay home. It’s last three weekend curfews also required most businesses — essential or not — to close.
The tribe nearly two weeks ago lifted its weekend curfews as part of efforts to ease COVID-19 restrictions. The decision followed a previous announcement that the tribe passed its peak demand on its health care system in late April, about a month earlier than projections. Officials kept a nightly curfew in place and issued requirements for “drive-in” gatherings.
While Navajo Nation officials say its COVID-19 cases are flattening, cases in Arizona hit record high numbers on Tuesday, about a month after its stay-athome order expired on May 15. The state’s spike in COVID-19 cases appears to be behind the tribe’s decision to again implement its weekend curfew.
“As states have opened up, we’ve seen the number of those infections rise; something that the health professionals had been cautioning the people about for a while now has come to fruition,” Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer said on Tuesday during an online town hall.
“So we are now faced with enacting our curfew measures nationwide,” he continued. “This has always been a potential scenario; the epidemiologists can help us see the need for these measures to be enacted.”
Navajo Nation residents are advised to plan ahead by purchasing medical supplies, food, water and other items they may need during the curfews.
Essential employees must carry official identification or documentation from their employer on letterhead with a phone number for further verification.
In addition, the curfew does not apply to health care operations, essential government functions, essential infrastructure or food cultivation operations.
Nez during the town hall on Tuesday compared the tribe’s flattening cases with Arizona’s rising cases. He specifically pointed out spikes in cases in Maricopa County and border towns such as Grand Canyon Village, Winslow and Holbrook.
“These are happening all around us, so that is the reason why we’re saying stay home. Don’t travel, please,” he said.
The tribe has 6,672 identified cases and 319 confirmed deaths as of Tuesday. The Navajo Nation — which spans 27,000 square miles across three states — has tested about 21.7% of its population, Nez said on Tuesday.
The state had 39,097 identified cases and 1,219 confirmed deaths as of Tuesday. Assuming the state’s 353,991 diagnostic tests were each administered to one person, Arizona has tested less than 5% of its more than 7.2 million residents.
Emergency department visits and ICU bed use for patients with suspected and confirmed COVID-19 recently hit its highest level in Arizona. Gov. Doug Ducey during a press briefing last week said concern about hospitals was “misinformation” and that Arizona hospitals are doing fine.
Nez expressed concern on Tuesday about the state’s surge in hospital visits.
“If we start getting a surge here on Navajo, I’m afraid that health care facilities around us are not going to take our patients, our Navajo people, because they are in need of hospital beds,” he said.
He also urged Phoenicians to wear masks, citing recent research studies that have shown masks can be effective in preventing transmission of COVID-19.
“Those of you that are listening from off the Navajo Nation, something that we’ve learned here on the Navajo Nation is this: wear a mask,” he said. “You don’t have to be mandated and be told to wear a mask . ... So those of you in Phoenix, wear those masks.”
He also asked tourists to avoid traveling through the Navajo Nation.