As of Thursday, August 6, 2020, Montana reports 4,602 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 173 new cases reported in the last day: 47 in Yellowstone County, 31 in Missoula County, 26 in Flathead County, 21 cases in Gallatin County, 19 in Big Horn County, 5 in Lake County, 4 in each of Lewis & Clark and Toole County, 3 in Glacier County, 2 in each of Cascade and Stillwater Counties, and 1 in each Beaverhead, Fergus, Madison, McCone, Musselshell, Park, Roosevelt, Rosebud and Valley Counties. Statewide, 259 people have been hospitalized, and 87 people are currently being treated in the hospital for COVID-19. Yellowstone County has had 1,191 cases so far, and Gallatin County has had 908. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 1,573. The most active cases are in Yellowstone County, with 611 active cases, while Gallatin County has 56 active cases. 65 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 159,000 Americans have died.

Big Horn County reports that three more of its residents have died due to COVID-19, making for a total of 14 fatalities in Big Horn County related to the respiratory illness. The most recent deaths were a woman in her 40s, a man in his 60s, and a man in his 70s. All three had been hospitalized prior to their deaths. Big Horn County, in southeast Montana, includes the Crow Indian Reservation and part of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. The county has a population of 13,000, and added an additional 18 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s approaching 400 total cases, 3% of the population.

In Ohio, 91 people caught COVID-19 after a man infected with the virus attended a church service there. The 56-year-old man infected 53 people at the service, and 18 of them then passed the virus to at least one other person. Religious services have been identified as situations where the coronavirus can spread like wildfire. Experts have warned that loud talking and singing could spread the coronavirus further than six feet. When people give exhalations that require more energy, the droplets they emit can travel further. Some research has also shown that louder speech produces more droplets. An infectious-disease expert says that church services “are an ideal setting for transmission. You have a lot of people in a closed space. And they’re speaking loudly, they’re singing. All those things are exactly what you don’t want.”

Dogs in Germany learned how to sniff out the coronavirus with stunning accuracy after just a few days of training. Eight dogs from Germany’s armed forces trained for just five days before they could identify the virus in humans. They sniffed the saliva of more than 1,000 people, both healthy and infected, identifying the coronavirus with a 94% success rate. Researchers think this works because metabolic processes in the body of a diseased patient is completely changed, and the dogs are able to detect a specific smell of the metabolic changes that occur in coronavirus patients. Dogs have a sense of smell that is 1,000 times better than humans, so their potential within the medical field is huge. Researchers said coronavirus-sniffing dogs could be used in public areas such as airports, sporting events and country borders to help identify people with coronavirus and to prevent further outbreaks of the virus.

Montana is reporting 52 confirmed and suspected cases and 12 hospitalizations due to salmonella infections linked to eating onions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the state and local health departments are investigating a large outbreak of salmonella infections. Thomson International Inc. of Bakersfield, California is voluntarily recalling red, yellow, white, and sweet yellow onions shipped from May 1, through the present. Nine cases of salmonella infection were reported for Cascade County, the most for any one county in the state. Salmonella is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Symptoms of salmonella infection include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

Montana State University announced today that it has changed its 2020 Convocation from an in-person event at Bobcat Stadium to a livestreamed online event. Convocation will be livestreamed Thursday, August 27 at 7:30 p.m., and will feature bestselling author and MSU alumna Sarah Vowell.