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Navajo Nation reports 6 additional deaths due to COVID-19

FILE - In this Sept. 25, 2014, file photo, students walk between buildings at the Little Singer Community School in Birdsprings, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation. The tribe is among plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that seeks to keep the U.S. Treasury Department from disbursing coronavirus relief funding for tribes to Alaska Native corporations. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Window Rock, N.M. • Navajo Nation officials report six additional deaths from COVID-19, raising the total on the tribe’s reservation to at least 79 as of Tuesday.

Tribal officials also reported 85 additional positive COVID-19 cases, raising the total on the reservation at least 2,599 as of Tuesday.

The Navajo Nation has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, with the tribe implementing curfews to try to stop the spread of the disease among residents of its far-flung communities.

The reservation includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The counties with the most reported positive cases as of Tuesday were New Mexico's McKinley County with 705 cases and Arizona's Apache and Navajo counties with 622 cases and and 556 cases, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Navajo Police Department said it issued 274 citations during the fourth and lastest weekend curfew.

Of those citations, 223 were for curfew violation and 51 were for traffic violations.

The curfew operation consisted of saturation patrol in the eastern Navajo region.

Another weekend curfew is scheduled to run from 8 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday.

Curfew violators who receive a criminal nuisance citation could be fined up to $1,000 and/or up to 30 days in jail. The penalties and fees are determined by the Navajo Nation courts.