Montana posts 158 new COVID-19 cases; many vaccine appointments available in Cascade County

Great Falls Tribune

The state posted 158 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, bringing Montana’s total to 105,035 confirmed reports.

Of the total cases, 102,570 are recovered and 1,000 remain active. There are 44 people who are now hospitalized out of 4,802 total hospitalizations, according to the state website covid19.mt.gov.

Montana reported 158 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, bringing the state to 105,035 cumulative cases, 1,000 of which remain active.

Montana added 11 deaths since Friday's report, bringing the total to 1,465 fatalities related to the respiratory illness.

The state has administered 1,211,006 tests for the coronavirus, which is 4,531 more than Friday.

To date, the state has administered 520,892 total doses of COVID-19 vaccine and 208,603 residents are fully immunized.

Cascade County opened appointments for residents to schedule their first COVID-19 vaccine doses through their community clinic. As of Friday afternoon only about 40% of the appointment slots had been claimed.

Stasha Sokolowski, a Montana State University nursing student, vaccinates a patient with the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine during the second day of the COVID-19 vaccine clinic at Montana ExpoPark, Wednesday, January 27, 2021. The City-County Health Department has teamed up with the Great Falls Clinic, Benefis Health System and Alluvion Health to run the vaccine clinic, which is currently in the process of inoculating the first round of 1500 patients 70 years old and older. Vaccinations are by appointment only with the next round of appointment scheduling taking place on Thursday morning, January 28 via the Benefis vaccine web portal at: www.benefis.org/COVIDvaccine

As of Saturday morning several time slots were still available for vaccination appointments between Wednesday, April 6 and Friday, April 9. All residents over 16 years of age are eligible to receive the vaccine at this time.

Appointments can be made online at https://www.benefis.org/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine

Gallatin County topped the state and posted 56 new COVID-19 cases, accounting for about a third of the cases reported on Saturday. The county has experienced a total 13,300 COVID-19 cases and 281 remain active, the most of any county in the state.

Cascade County reported 17 cases. The county now has 54 active cases, 8,266 recoveries and 151 deaths out of 8,471 cumulative cases.

Missoula County added 15 new cases, bringing it to 106 active reports. Flathead and Lewis and Clark counties each reported 13 cases. Yellowstone county posted eight, and now has 114 active reports.

In northcentral Montana, Fergus County reported three new cases, bringing it to 1,089 total cases, five of which remain active. Meagher County added two new cases, which are the only active reports in the county. Pondera County now has two active cases after posting one new case on Saturday.

Several counties are reporting zero active cases including, Blaine County, Carter County, Chouteau County, Daniels County, Dawson County, Garfield County, Golden Valley County, Hill County, Liberty County, Mineral County, Petroleum County, Powder River County, Richland County, Teton County and Treasure County.

Skylar Rispens reports on education and breaking news for the Great Falls Tribune. To contact her with comments or story ideas please email her at srispens@greatfallstribune.com. Follow her on Twitter @skylar_rispens or on Facebook at Skylar Rispens.

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