The Oglala Sioux Tribe is vaccinating healthcare, nursing home and long-term care facility workers.
The tribe is working with both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Tribal leaders are carefully managing the number of vaccine doses they receive.
Alicia Mousseau is vice president of the tribe. She says they are asking frontline workers what they want to do.
“We’re not just saying you have to take it if you’re in these various infrastructures, we’re asking if they want to. We’re trying to figure that out so, if there’s 20 people at the nursing home working there and 18 want to take it and two of them don’t, we know how much that’s going to take from the vaccine. So that’s helpful.”
Mousseau says tracking vaccines for healthcare workers helps the tribe advocate for the exact number of doses they need during this first phase.
Mousseau says they are also working to boost confidence in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. They’re asking other respected members of the community to set an example by taking the vaccine.
“We have also been asking our medicine people if they would take it,” Mousseau says. “Really help with us getting people to be like, ‘Okay, this medicine person is taking it and is promoting and I’m going to follow them.’ We do have different influencers in our community and leaders in that way. Those of us who, even though we have these political positions, we may have less risk factors and may want to, in our own way, culturally, allow other people to take that who are higher risk.”
The tribe’s medical task force will continue to roll out its COVID vaccine plan.
-Contact SDPB reporter Lee Strubinger by email.