Fewer ethnic groups in the U.S. have been harder hit by COVID-19 than Native Americans. It’s killed them at more than twice the rate of whites. The pandemic has exacerbated longstanding health inequities, and a deep-rooted distrust in the federal government made tribal leaders fearful that members would reject the government-endorsed vaccines.

But the opposite happened. Native Americans now have the highest vaccination rates of any major racial or ethnic group in the United States. L.A. Times Seattle bureau chief Richard Read and Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez explain why.

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Despite obstacles, Native Americans have the nation’s highest COVID-19 vaccination rate

COVID-19 is crushing Native American reservations. But distrust of the government makes vaccines a hard sell

They know the sick. On Navajo Nation, contact tracers work to control coronavirus on vast lands