A year after experiencing one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the nation, the Navajo Nation is rapidly approaching herd immunity via an aggressive vaccination campaign. Still, tribal leaders said they will continue to require curfews, gathering limits and masks, even though federal health guidelines state those restrictions are generally unnecessary among vaccinated people... Notah Ryan Begay III, 48, said most of his fellow Navajo understand that the reservation's healthcare system could also easily get overwhelmed again. Begay, a former professional golfer, now runs a nonprofit dedicated to improving health and wellness education for Native American youth. He said longstanding health inequities faced by the Navajo and other Native Americans, in part driven by the past "extraordinary human rights violations” committed by white settlers, have made tribes cautious. “We can ill afford another outbreak," he said from Albuquerque. "What tribal leaders have learned is that in times of desperation, in times when resources are limited, we’ll be the last in line.”