As of Friday, August 7, 2020, Montana reports 4,757 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 155 new cases reported in the last day: 21 in Flathead and in Yellowstone County, 20 in Missoula County, 16 in Phillips County, 13 in Big Horn County, 10 in Silver Bow County, 8 in Ravalli County, 7 in Carbon and in Gallatin County, 6 in Glacier County, 3 in Beaverhead, Custer, Lake, and Madison Counties, 2 in each of Deer Lodge and Toole Counties, and 1 in each of Chouteau, Dawson, Hill, Lewis & Clark, Lincoln, Pondera, Sheridan, Stillwater, and Valley Counties. Statewide, 264 people have been hospitalized, and 84 people are currently being treated in the hospital for COVID-19. Yellowstone County has had 1,212 cases so far, and Gallatin County has had 915. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 1,565. The most active cases are in Yellowstone County, with 533 active cases, while Gallatin County has 62 active cases of coronavirus infection. Seventy people have died in Montana of COVID-19.

The Big Sky conference has canceled its 2020 college football season after a vote among the conference’s 13 teams, which includes the two university teams in Montana: the Montana State University Bobcats and the University of Montana Grizzlies. The Big Sky Conference is spread throughout the entire Western United States from the northern to the southern borders of the country. It includes teams in Montana, Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah and Oregon. Now the season for the Big Sky Conference is canceled. Two Montana State games had already been canceled because of the pandemic. The Pac-12 shifted to conference-only contests, which erased the Bobcats’ game at Utah on Sept. 12. MSU was set to make a $675,000 payout to play that game. Then the Northeast Conference became the sixth FCS league to call off sports this fall. That meant MSU’s home opener and Gold Rush game against Long Island on Sept. 5 was no longer happening.

Sports seasons have been cut short because of the coronavirus pandemic and the much higher risk of infection at sporting events. An MSU football player tested positive for coronavirus this offseason. Athletes have been recently allowed to work out, and the Bobcats were expected to begin official fall football practices on Friday. Now, the decision to cancel the 2020 football season could be a precursor to Power Five conferences ultimately deciding to cancel their seasons as well. The University of Connecticut has already decided to cancel its 2020 season, and the Ivy League as a whole made the very same decision earlier in the summer.

Medieval ‘wine windows’ are reopening, reviving a quaint Italian plague tradition— with a very dark history. Centuries ago, the bubonic plague, otherwise known as “black death,” swept through Europe, killing one-third of the continent’s population at the time. Originating in Asia, the disease made its way to Italy during the late Middle Ages, and spread north from there. These days, we know just as well as medieval Italians that a stiff drink can go a long way to easing troubles during the global coronavirus pandemic. Thus, the “wine windows,” of Tuscany. They are just as they sound: pint-size hatches, carved into the concrete walls of urban wineries and shops, where beverage merchants can serve glasses of wine at a safe social distance. Some enterprising Florentine Wine Window owners have turned back the clock and are using their Wine Windows to dispense glasses of wine, cups of coffee, drinks, sandwiches and ice cream — all germ-free and contactless!”

Leaving your nose uncovered defeats the purpose of wearing a mace Mask. You have no doubt seen plenty of people in public with their mask pulled down so it covers only the mouth, leaving their nose exposed. Health experts say that defeats the point of wearing a mask even more than you might think. Unfortunately, just like the nose is better for breathing, the nose also appears to be better at spreading coronavirus. A study published in the journal Cell mapped locations in the respiratory tract where the COVID-19 virus most quickly invades, multiplies and spreads. the cells that line the nose were significantly more likely to become infected and shed virus compared to the throat or lungs. That means, every time a person exhales through the nose, they are generating a higher concentration of infectious aerosol than if they were simply breathing from the mouth. It also means that in order to block that infectious cloud from escaping to infect other people, it’s very important to cover your nose with your mask.