Even though Native people have the highest COVID-19 mortality rates nationwide and have seen their mortality rate accelerate the fastest in the past four weeks, (APM Research Lab, The color of coronavirus:COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity in the U.S.), it's responsible for some good news, too.
Applications are up for the University of Medical School, Duluth Campus in general, thanks in part to an application process that includes Zoom interviews now instead of flights to meet with prospective schools.
But Dr. Mary Owen, the director of the Center of American Indian and Minority Health and the president of the Association of American Indian Physicians, says she's still interviewing applicants when typically she'd be done by now, because more and more Native students are seeing the effects of COVID-19 in Indian Country and taking a look at a future in medicine.