As of Friday, September 18, 2020, Montana reports 9,871 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and a new high number of cases, 224, in a single day for Montana: 39 in Flathead County, 39 in Missoula County, 31 in Yellowstone County, 25 in Roosevelt County, 19 in Rosebud County, 17 in Cascade County, 9 in Big Horn County, 6 in Gallatin County, 5 in Lewis & Clark County, 4 in each of Glacier, Hill, and Jefferson Counties, 3 in each of Silver Bow and Toole Counties, 2 in each of Lake, Ravalli, and Stillwater Counties, and 1 in each of ten more counties: Blaine, Custer, Fallon, Liberty, Meagher, Musselshell, Phillips, Powder River, Sanders, and Valley Counties. Statewide, 555 people have been hospitalized, and 105 people currently are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. Yellowstone County has had 2,708 cases so far. Gallatin County has had 1,185. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 2,225. The most active cases are in Yellowstone County, with 841 active cases. Gallatin County has 47. 146 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeast Montana has lost twenty members to COVID-19 in just the last three weeks. Nationwide, more than 198,000 Americans have died. There have been 6,710,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked controversial Postal Service changes that have slowed mail nationwide, calling them “a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service” before the November election. Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, said he was issuing a nationwide preliminary injunction sought by 14 states that sued the Trump administration and the U.S. Postal Service. The states challenged the Postal Service’s so-called “leave behind” policy, where trucks have been leaving postal facilities on time regardless of whether there is more mail to load. States also sought to force the Postal Service to treat election mail as first class mail. The judge noted after a hearing that Trump had repeatedly attacked voting by mail by making unfounded claims that it is rife with fraud. Many more voters are expected to vote by mail this November because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the states have expressed concern that delays might result in voters not receiving ballots or registration forms in time. Judge Bastian said, “The states have demonstrated the defendants are involved in a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service.” He also said the changes created “a substantial possibility many voters will be disenfranchised.”

The Trump White House scuttled a plan to partner with the US Postal Service to send every American a face mask in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic. The Postal Service was preparing to send out 650 million face masks in April to supply every household, but the Trump administration stopped the plan.

Just one day after attending the NFL season opener in Kansas City last week, a fan tested positive for Covid-19, prompting authorities to tell ten others who were at the game to quarantine. The Sept. 10 contest between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans had fans in the stands — almost 16,000 of them — but far fewer than the number Arrowhead Stadium can hold, 76,000. Kansas City Health Department Director Dr. Rex Archer said, “I want to remind everyone that Covid-19 is anywhere and everywhere. While we’re all tired of it, frustrated and even angry at how it has altered and stricken our lives and livelihoods, we must continue to think of those who have not and will not survive it.”

An Idaho pastor who flouted local mask orders and encouraged congregants to go maskless after reopening for services in May is in the intensive care unit at a hospital after contracting coronavirus. Paul Van Noy, the pastor at Candlelight Christian Fellowship in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, has been hospitalized for two weeks while his wife and five other church staffers recover from their own coronavirus infections. The church was closed for two weeks and underwent a “deep cleaning” before reopening last Sunday.

Even as movie theaters, gyms and salons are opening and some states are allowing limited indoor dining, daily life in the U.S. won’t get back to normal until late 2021 when a vaccine for COVID-19 could be widely distributed, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert. As the U.S. is plateauing at a high level of around 40,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths a day, Fauci also voiced concerns about states starting to resume certain indoor activities like dining. Fauci says, “Being indoors absolutely increases the risk” of transmission. “I am concerned when I see things starting indoors, and that becomes more compelling when you move into fall and winter season.” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said restaurants will reopen on Sept. 30, at 25 percent capacity and allow 50 percent capacity in November. But New York delayed the start of in-person classes for almost a million public school students because of the high risk of coronavirus transmission. In Florida, Miami-Dade restaurants were allowed to reopen at 50 percent capacity at the end of August, even as the CDC has found that adults who tested positive for COVID-19 were twice as likely to report having eaten at a restaurant in the past two weeks.