Students at 183 schools will receive personal protective equipment from the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), according to a Feb. 3 press release.

The federal agency will reportedly distribute 1.2 million units of PPE—half being surgical masks for students and half being N95 respirators for staff and guardians—across the schools, all BIE-funded. 

“Tribal communities have been seriously impacted by the pandemic and have taken proactive measures to protect their communities to stop or slow the spread of COVID for the past two years. With this initiative,  we are leveraging our existing resources in rural and remote communities to improve access to protective masks and respirators,” Bryan Newland, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, said in the release. 

Newland added that the PPE are "critical public health tools" that education faculty need to protect themselves and others from the COVID virus. 

In December, the Miami Herald reported that Native Americans are dying from COVID-19 at a much higher rate than other groups.

"COVID-19 killed Native Americans at a rate 2.8 times higher than that among white people last year before vaccines became widely available, according to a new study," the Herald wrote. "The mortality rate for the disease among the group was also “considerably higher” than that of Black and Latino populations."

The Bureau of Indian Affairs received $9 billion in funding for coronavirus response in order to improve health inequities that American Indians and Alaska Natives face, according to the Indian Health Service. 

This map shows COVID testing rates by Indian Health Service area.