The Navajo Nation is at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the weekend of May 9, they hit a grim milestone: 100 deaths related to COVID-19. There have been more than 3,000 positive cases there, and the numbers keep growing.
The city of Gallup, New Mexico, was under lockdown until May 11 as cases there rose — especially among the homeless population — and healthcare workers were stretched thin.
The Show spoke to one of those healthcare workers.
Aylin Ulku is a clinician educator at the University of California San Francisco, and she specializes in global health care. Ulku has worked in Africa and has had a relationship with the Navajo Nation as part of UCSF’s HEAL Initiative.
Now, she’s volunteering in Gallup, living in a hotel and treating patients at a local motel where they are quarantined. She sees 25-30 patients a day in full personal protective gear there, and said the work is both deeply gratifying and difficult.
