BROWNING — The Blackfeet Tribe may start offering COVID-19 vaccines to tourists coming to Glacier National Park by late this spring.
As of Monday, about 95% of the tribe had at least their first COVID shot. Tribe spokesperson James McNeely estimated that about 75% of tribal members had received either both of the two-dose shots, or the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot, and are now fully vaccinated.
"By the time middle May rolls around, we probably will be at 100% fully vaccinated so we're looking to the future as to how we're going to test. We're going to keep testing. Maybe if tourists come in and we still have the vaccine and they haven't gotten theirs and they want one, that's a possibility,” said McNeely.
The tribe has all three vaccines -- Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer.
As of Monday, there was only one active case of the virus on the reservation and that person was not hospitalized. The reservation has been hit hard by the pandemic, with 1,385 recorded cases since March 15, 2020. There have been 47 deaths due to COVID-19. Forty of the deaths were counted on the reservation, two counted in county, two counted outside of county and three counted out of state. All were tribal and/or community members.