The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation home to ~7500 Hopi persons living primarily in 12 remote villages. The Hopi Tribe, like many other American Indian nations, has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. On 18 May 2020, a team from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was deployed on the request of the tribe in response to increases in COVID-19 cases. Collaborating with Hopi Health Care Center (the reservation's federally run Indian Health Service health facility) and CDC, the Hopi strengthened public health systems and response capacity from May to August including: (1) implementing routine COVID-19 surveillance reporting; (2) establishing the Hopi Incident Management Authority for rapid coordination and implementation of response activities across partners; (3) implementing a community surveillance programme to facilitate early case detection and educate communities on COVID-19 prevention; and (4) applying innovative communication strategies to encourage mask wearing, hand hygiene and physical distancing. These efforts, as well as community adherence to mitigation measures, helped to drive down cases in August. As cases increased in September-November, the improved capacity gained during the first wave of the pandemic enabled the Hopi leadership to have real-time awareness of the changing epidemiological landscape. This prompted rapid response coordination, swift scale up of health communications and redeployment of the community surveillance programme. The Hopi experience in strengthening their public health systems to better confront COVID-19 may be informative to other indigenous peoples as they also respond to COVID-19 within the context of disproportionate burden.

The Hopi Tribe, a sovereign nation in northeastern Arizona, includes approximately 7,500 persons within 12 rural villages (1). During April 11–June 15, 2020, the Hopi Health Care Center (HHCC, an Indian Health Services facility) reported 136 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among Hopi residents; 27 (20%) patients required hospitalization (J Hirschman, MD, CDC, personal communication, June 2020). Contact tracing of Hopi COVID-19 cases identified delayed seeking of care and testing by persons experiencing COVID-19–compatible signs and symptoms*; inconsistent adherence to recommended mitigation measures,† such as mask-wearing and social distancing; and limited knowledge of the roles of testing, isolation, and quarantine procedures§ (2). Based on these findings, the Hopi Tribe Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) collaborated with HHCC to develop a community-focused program to enhance COVID-19 surveillance and deliver systematic health communications to the communities. This report describes the surveillance program and findings from two field tests.¶