REDDING, Calif. (KRCR/CNN) – The Redding Rancheria has taken matters into its own hands, vaccinating Native Americans in the Northstate.
Their Executive Director Glen Hayward says they’re now vaccinating all patients 18 and over at their Tribal Health Center on Liberty Street.
Hayward says since the opening of their clinic, they’ve been able to vaccinate those 50 and over their first month as their first target group. But after seeing their patient population, the age group 18 to 39 were the highest number of patients that were COVID positive or COVID exposed. And because they are part of the tribe, they were able to take matters into their own hands and now vaccinate their patients over 18 instead of going by the state’s outlines phase group.
Hayward said, “The Indian health service has said to us all tribes are different and they’re unique. So, you can deviate from the phases as long as it’s in the spirit of getting people vaccinated. When we looked at this as a tribe and with our medical staff and said we have a large population of patients that still need to be vaccinated, we don’t want to wait months and months for these phases to come and make them technically eligible at that point. Let’s move forward and start vaccinating our patients.”
They apparently have been able to vaccinate almost 500 patients as of Tuesday and are anticipating giving the first 400 people their second dose by the end of next week.
And with their weekly COVID shipments, Hayward says they’re able to steadily vaccinate around 200 people per week.
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