To our Member Tribes and Partners:
This past year has tested the resolve of the entire nation. We have all suffered unthinkable losses - the COVID-19 pandemic created a health and economic crisis in the United States, taking more than 600,000 American lives, infecting nearly 29 million Americans, and more than 10 million remain unemployed. While the COVID-19 pandemic spared no one, it disparately impacted Native Nations from both a health care and economic perspective. In March of 2020, tribal governments took immediate action to prevent transmission of the virus and to protect the safety of employees, guests, and our communities. Knowing that prior pandemics inflicted death and trauma on Native communities at rates four times the national average, tribal leaders nationwide closed enterprise operations and issued lockdown orders in early March to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. Despite these significant precautions, the CDC reports that on a per capita basis, Native Americans have the highest COVID-infection, hospitalization, and death rates of any community in the Nation. From an economic standpoint, every Indian gaming operation in the nation closed to prevent spread of the virus in our communities. Some Tribes chose to keep their doors closed where community spread remained a high risk. Those that chose to re-open did so slowly and safely, in coordination with tribal health officials, engaged in testing, temperature checks, hand sanitizing, mask wearing, deep cleaning, occupancy limits. As a result, it is estimated that Tribal Government-owned enterprises will sustain 35 percent revenue losses in 2020 alone—with losses totaling more than $30 billion before a full recovery to 2019 revenue levels in 2023. These lost government revenues have forced many Tribes to furlough government employees and cut provisions of essential education, health, housing and safety services to Reservation residents. At the onset of the pandemic in early March 2020, the National Indian Gaming Association immediately got to work to address the quickly emerging crises caused by COVID-19. Congress responded to the calls from Indian Country by enacting the CARES Act on March 27, 2020, which provided historic levels of funding for Indian tribes through the $8 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund, and other key provisions to help Tribal Governments stop the spread of the virus and maintain economic stability. In these early days of the pandemic, the National Indian Gaming Association immediately united with our Member Tribes and sister tribal organizations to help Indian Country meet this unprecedented challenge. In late March of 2020, we worked with federal policymakers to secure $8 billion in direct funding to
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