Indigenous People and COVID-19: A Dark Cloud and a Silver
Lining
By Francesco Rende, Truth & Reconciliation Summit - May
2021
A member of Tsleil-Waututh First Nation in B.C. receives the
COVID-19 vaccination. Credits to CBC
As we near our Truth and
Reconciliation Summit and turn around to stare at the marred history of Canada’s relations with Indigenous
people, something flutters just outside of our gaze. It’s been there for a while, but, in the midst of a
pandemic that has swept its flood waves across the world, this fluttering has only become more frantic. It was
this fluttering that led Marc Miller, the Minister of Indigenous Services of Canada, to recognize the increased
difficulties faced by Indigenous people during the pandemic: on top of a lack of access to important resources
such as drinking water, housing and health care, Indigenous communities are now struggling beneath the weight of
COVID-19 to a far greater extent than the rest of Canada. Worse, this plague-within-a-plague is not content with
staying within the confines of Canada: even in America, Indigenous people have ‘1.6 times more cases… and 2.4
times as many deaths than non-Hispanic white individuals’, according to a report from ReliefWeb. The discrepancy
between the number of cases and the number of deaths highlight that not only are Indigenous people more at risk
for contracting COVID-19, they are also less likely to receive the life-saving treatments they so desperately
need, likely due to the aforementioned lack of access to healthcare.
And yet, this is not all doom and gloom: for all the initial and continued problems facing the Indigenous
community right now, theirs is also a story of success and potential for the future. Minister Miller noted how
crucial the role of Indigenous leadership was in distributing vaccines, saying, “You can't underplay or
underestimate the work that the Indigenous leadership has done to deploy the public health measures in
communities to really drive down the 5,000 active cases in January.” It was this combination of Indigenous
leadership alongside early deliveries of vaccines that have driven COVID-19 cases in Indigenous communities down
by 85%, from 5,000 at the start of 2021 to a mere 635 as of April 6. In fact, of all of the adults in Indigenous
communities, around 60% have already been vaccinated.
Ultimately, this pandemic, despite all the chaos it has caused, may have done us one small favour in shedding
some light on what can be done and what needs to be done. We have seen the danger of having many communities
without reliable access to healthcare, but we have also seen the possibilities presented by the success of the
Indigenous leadership. As we begin to think more and more about Truth and Reconciliation, we too should consider
the value of this newfound knowledge and the possibilities it presents.