Quechan couple conquering COVID-19
Arizona Department of Health reports Native Americans make up 19% of COVID-19 deaths.
(After this story aired, the Quechan Tribe reached out to us, and contrary to the couples' interview, the tribe says Cecil Palone and Pascha Nierenhausen do not live on the reservation.)
WINTERHAVEN, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - Cecil Palone and Pascha Nierenhausen say all they have are each other.
Back in March, the two Quechan tribal members slowly fell ill.
Initial symptoms started with a headache, then escalated to severe migraine, fever, and soon came the coughing spell
Nierenhausen said, “Slowly you could feel it spreading through your entire chest. Your nasal cavity and chest cavity becomes really really dry.”
Living paycheck to paycheck in their small Winterhaven home, the couple suffered through their symptoms.
“We don’t want to call the ambulance because we don’t have insurance, we don’t have the cash to pay that bill,” said Nierenhausen.
After a week, their fever and cough became unbearable.
Palone and Nierenhausen say they were taken to Yuma Regional Medical Center where they were swabbed for the COVID-19.
Days later, the couple says they tested positive for the virus.
Nierenhausen said, “It was initially a two-week process of quarantine, you are not allowed out of your house. You are legally locked, the [CDC] will notify you at your house and they present you the legal documents that you are legally locked in your house. So that's how we found out we have [COVID-19].”
While data from the Arizona Department of Health reports Native Americans make up 19% of the COVID-19 deaths in the state, Palone and Nierenhausen say they are frustrated claiming there is a lack of transparency within the Quechan tribe.
“I believe us Native Americans have a higher contracted population because our tribe has not reached out to our community. There were no physical posts from higher authorities to stay home, there was nothing posted on the doors, no communal letters, I didn’t see none of that,” said Nierenhausen.
As of Thursday, the Quechan tribe says “There [is] no confirmed positive [COVID-19] case living on the reservation, AZ or CA.”
However, this couple has lost all trust in their tribe, and Nierenhausen doubts they're the only tribal members who have contracted the virus.
“There’s a lot of people who have passed away silently with pneumonia or complications but our tribe isn’t saying anything. That’s not fair to our neighborhood or counties that are next to us,” Nierenhausen said.
The couple says they received medicine from the Fort Yuma Indian Health Center to treat their symptoms and doctors mandated their quarantine be extended from two weeks to 60-days.
