For Navajo, crowded homes have always been a lifeline. The pandemic threatens that.

Comprehensive COVID-19 vaccination strategies helped some Native American Nations achieve high vaccination rates. Tribal sovereignty gave Nations the flexibility to create their own methods of distributing the vaccine and allowed officials to distribute doses to hard-to-reach areas – even by dog sled in Alaska. They could prioritize who to vaccinate and diversify how vaccines were offered – from private appointments to mass-vaccination events – to ensure broad accessibility. Medical professionals, tribal leaders, and Native youth used social media to share information and encourage people to get vaccinated.

Hosting business meetings over Zoom is nothing new during the coronavirus pandemic, but performing artists are also using the platform and adapting their work to the videoconferencing software. After initial performances were a success, an LA theater company called Theater Unleashed began experimenting with the platform and created a Facebook group for U.S. playwrights and actors who wish to participate. An Atlanta organization called Center for Puppetry Arts started hosting Zoom puppet shows. It isn't a seamless transition, but it is inviting creative adaption from creatives all across the country.

Hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in remote regions of the Amazon have been vaccinated for COVID-19 in part thanks to programs that send indigenous vaccinators with non-mRNA vaccines to remote villages. There, they meet with community leaders and work to gain the community’s trust before vaccinating those who are willing. Non-mRNA vaccines are used due to the refrigeration needed for mRNA doses, but they also make it easier to address misconceptions associated with the new and unfamiliar mRNA technology.

After becoming a COVID-19 hotspot, Guadalupe built partnerships and built trust among community members to effectively track cases, dispel misinformation, and increase vaccinations. The Town Council partnered with Pascua Yaqui tribal leaders, the broader Maricopa County, Native Health, and a COVID-19 response team composed of faculty, staff, and students at Arizona State University to lower infection rates. A combination of at-home testing, contact tracing and, eventually, vaccination events helped, as did the use of promotoras – community health workers who talk with residents to help ease anxiety.

IPSI Palaima is working to vaccinate Indigenous families who live in hard-to-reach areas of La Guajira, where there are no paved roads, electricity, or running water and staff must use cars, boats, and motorbikes to reach them. A team of nursing assistants and a doctor spend 15 days at a time at a local outpost and travel by motorbike to surrounding communities, carrying vaccines in cooler bags. The organization was founded by an Indigenous woman who grew up in the area. Many of the staff members speak the local language, which can ease the communities’ vaccine hesitation and mistrust of authorities.

The White Mountain Apache Tribe curbed COVID-19 death rates with contact-tracing, surveillance of high-risk people, and vaccinations. After a devastating COVID-19 outbreak, health officials began daily home visits to monitor vital signs of those who tested positive and those at greatest risk, allowing positive cases to be identified early. In combination with prior health outreach programs, this helped the team to form strong bonds with tribal members, which has been key to the program’s success. This familiarity has also helped them address vaccine hesitancy as they vaccinate people in their homes.

College students from the University of Georgia meet virtually every week for a bible study group that allows them to connect and worship despite social distancing restrictions that have been in place since the onset of the pandemic. Building a virtual religious community has also provided benefits - such as flexibility - which were not possible in person.

Alaska has achieved one of the highest vaccination rates in the country due to prioritizing access to the vaccine for rural and Indigenous residents. Using a myriad of transportation efforts – including a fleet of chartered planes, a water taxi drove, and sleds pulled behind snow machines – clinicians have been able to deliver thousands of doses to these remote communities.

The Native American Community Clinic in Minneapolis is utilizing telehealth practices to treat both the medical and spiritual needs of the community and its patients. Although the "spiritual-meets-traditional care program" was already in place and had received funding before the coronavirus pandemic, it is now being implemented as a telehealth system with patients reporting that it has helped to create a sense of connection despite the adherence to physical distancing.

The Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw has long had a culture of cyclicality which is now coming in handy during the Coronavirus pandemic. Because they assume that hardship will come after periods of abundance, tribal members prepare for times of scarcity by making do with less, strategizing new ways to produce food, and regularly checking in with elders to ensure their needs are met. The tribe also lives on the coast of Louisiana, so climate change and environmental degradation remain an issue that they include in their future-planning.