Full story on CNN: Only about 2,000 people can speak the Cherokee language fluently. And as Covid-19 began to spread, that number started to dwindle.

So when the Cherokee Nation began receiving shipments of the Covid-19 vaccine, the tribal government identified Cherokee speakers as among the first groups to be eligible for the shot.” When you lose a speaker and you’re a tribe that has only 2,000 fluent speakers left, you’ve lost something that isn’t just irreplaceable, as all life is, but is really a national treasure,” Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. told CNN. “Whether they survive and whether they pass down their knowledge will help determine in a couple of generations if there is a Cherokee language left.” Vaccinating Cherokee language speakers alongside frontline health care workers is just the latest effort the tribe has made during the pandemic to keep this treasured population safe.