As of Tuesday, August 18, 2020, Montana reports 5,846 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 57 new cases reported in the last day: 14 in Big Horn County, 7 in Yellowstone County, 6 in Flathead County, 4 in Glacier County, 3 in each of Lake, Missoula, and Ravalli Counties, 2 in Cascade, Gallatin, Lewis & Clark, and Pondera Counties, and 1 in each of Dawson, Jefferson, Lincoln, Rosebud, Silver Bow, Sweet Grass, Teton, Toole, and Valley Counties. Statewide, 339 people have been hospitalized, and 97 are currently being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. Yellowstone County has had 1,539 cases so far. Gallatin County has had 993. Two more people have died in Montana of COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths in Montana to 84. Nationwide, more than 170,000 Americans have died. There have been 5.4 million COVID-19 cases in the United States, and counting.

Actress Sharon Stone is criticizing the availability of COVID-19 testing in Montana, where her sister and brother-in-law are hospitalized with the respiratory virus. Stone posted a video on Instagram Sunday expressing frustration at a lack of testing for front-line workers and people who have been in contact with someone who has COVID-19. Sharon Stone says her mother has had two heart attacks and was fitted for a pacemaker in the past five months, but couldn’t get tested even though she had been in direct contact with her daughter, who has coronavirus. Stone also urged people to wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus.

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is going immediately to remote learning after an outbreak of coronavirus cases—one hundred thirty students and five staff members—and four clusters of cases within a week of starting in-person classes for the fall semester, becoming the first college to send students home after having reopened. The University of North Carolina showed a cumulative rate of positive COVID-19 cases of 10.6 percent — higher than the statewide rate in North Carolina of 7.5 percent. Of almost a thousand students tested, 526 are in isolation or quarantine, both on and off campus. Four separate clusters of coronavirus cases struck student dormitories and fraternity houses. Other universities have outbreaks of illness, too. The University of Notre Dame reported 58 confirmed cases since students returned to campus in early August. At least two off-campus parties over a week ago have been identified as sources. And there have been outbreaks at fraternities in Washington state, California and Mississippi.

In Missoula, the University of Montana is requiring face masks and social distancing in classrooms and across campus. Football games and other large gatherings have been canceled, classes will be smaller, there will be classes outside, and many students’ schedules will be a mix of online and in-person classes. UM and Montana State University in Bozeman are proceeding with face-to-face instruction for the majority of classes this fall, although there will also be a good portion of classes that will be either remote, which often means simultaneous Zoom classes, or online, an asynchronous model where students go through material at a different time than the professor. Some courses such as science labs or hands-on classes will be in-person. MSU in Bozeman returned to online and in-person classes this week.

Your mask may not be enough if COVID-19 Is in the Air. Experts say coronavirus can spread via aerosols, or viral particles produced by talking, breathing, singing, and even exercise. In one cluster of cases, 45 of the 60 members of a choir group in Washington—none of whom shook hands or had physical contact with other members—tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The forceful exhalation of air from singing released enough viral particles to infect a majority of the singers. Studies of other viruses like influenza and SARS have shown that smaller particles have larger amounts of viable virus.

The Canadian Football League canceled its 2020 season Monday because of the pandemic, marking the first year since 1919 the Grey Cup won’t be awarded.

Minks at two Utah fur farms have tested positive for coronavirus, and so have employees at the farms in Utah. Minks were discovered to be susceptible to the virus in April, when the Netherlands reported outbreaks at several farms, and mink farms in Denmark and Spain were later affected. In Utah, a state agriculture laboratory performed necropsies on several minks after “unusually large numbers of mink died at the farms from coronavirus infection. Minks are raised for their pelts, used for coats and other luxury items. Minks are related to ferrets, which laboratory experiments have shown are highly vulnerable to the virus. A small number of coronavirus cases have been confirmed in dogs, cats, and other animals in the United States and other countries, and evidence suggests most animals are infected by people.