Covid-19: Chief Raoni is discharged from hospital; elders are still at risk

One week after testing positive for Covid-19, chief Raoni Metuktire, 90, leader of the Kayapó people, was discharged from hospital in Mato Grosso. Besides Covid-19, the chief had lung problems.

Raoni is recognized internationally for his struggle to defend indigenous peoples, who saw his recovery as good news since Covid-19 disproportionately affects native Brazilians, according to the BBC. The report shows that the pandemic threatens to destroy, besides lives, entire cultures concentrated in their elders. Indigenous representatives consider the loss of the elders as an “true extermination of ethnicities”. Only in the Xingu region, in Pará State, Covid-19 caused the death of elders and chiefs like Aritana Yawalapiti, Juca Kamayurá, Jamiko Nafukuá, and Mamy Kalapalo. Among the Kokama people in Amazonas, at least 37 indigenous people, mostly the elderly, have died from the coronavirus. In Roraima State, the elderly Macuxi Bernaldina José Pedro, from TI Raposa Serra do Sol, died.

According to Apib — Indigenous Peoples in Brazil Network, which filed a lawsuit against the government in the Supreme Court for failure to provide assistance to indigenous people during the pandemic, indigenous populations infected by Covid-19 have a 9.6% lethality rate, while the average population in overall is 4%, according to the Ministry of Health.