The Navajo teenager who went viral reporting on coronavirus: 'I just want us to be seen'

Larry Jackson, 16, would not describe himself as “political”. Last night he was celebrating the end of his junior year exams by eating chicken wings, playing Fortnite and Facetiming his friends.

But last month, Jackson unwittingly went viral after he released a TikTok video raising the alarm on the huge number of Covid-19 cases hitting the Navajo Nation, a territory occupying parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

He compares the situation in the Navajo Nation – now first in the US in terms of cases, with 4,253 cases and 146 known deaths, to West Virginia. West Virginia spans 24,038 square miles – making it smaller than the Navajo Nation, at 27,413 square miles. Despite this, Jackson explains: “West Virgnia is living on 163 grocery stores, we’re living on 13. They are living on 63 hospitals, we are living on six.”

“Today we live on broken treaties and broken promises from the US government… This is America,” he finishes.