As of Tuesday, December 15, 2020, Montana reports 74,040 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 803 new cases reported in the last day: 109 in Cascade County, 108 in Lewis & Clark County, 92 in Yellowstone County, 68 in Flathead County, 65 in Gallatin County, 63 in Lake County, 56 in Missoula County, 37 in Ravalli County, and more new cases in 34 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 8,916. Statewide, 3,119 people have been hospitalized, and 338 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The most active cases are in Yellowstone and Cascade Counties and in Flathead and Lewis & Clark Counties. 826 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 302,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 16,600,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

Six Bozeman Health employees lined up in the emergency room on Monday afternoon to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. They were among the first Montanans to receive the vaccine, which arrived in the state Monday morning. Dr. Andrew Sullivan, a pulmonary and critical care physician, was the first in line. Over the last 11 months, Sullivan said he has seen the coronavirus take lives and upend the health care industry. “There has been a lot of hardship, but the vaccine brings hope,” he said. Bozeman Health received 975 doses of the COVID-19 on Monday morning and will distribute them in the coming days to employees who work directly with patients or who are in positions that have limited staffing. Because the vaccine can cause side effects, such as fevers and aches, Bozeman Health is also staggering vaccination schedules among departments.

Frontline health care workers at the state’s nine other major hospitals are also expected to be vaccinated in the coming days. This month, Montana will receive 9,750 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which federal regulators approved Friday. The state anticipates receiving additional vaccine doses, including from the pharmaceutical company Moderna, which is likely to receive federal approval for its vaccine soon. Because it is uncertain when a vaccine will be widely available to the public, officials continue to urge people to follow public health rules, including wearing a mask in public and practicing social distancing.

What started as a random act of kindness from one man paying for the car behind him in a Dairy Queen drive-thru resulted in over 900 cars also taking part in the pay it forward chain. Tina Jensen, the store manager at one of the two Dairy Queens in town, said a man came by the drive-thru window on Thursday and asked if he could pay for his meal and for the car behind him. When the next customer came to the fast food chain’s window, Jensen explained what the man in front of them had done — and the acts of kindness continued to multiply. Jensen told her cashier this tends to happen once in a while but at most it lasts for 15 or 20 cars and fizzles out. When the chain closed for the night Thursday, one car left $10 to begin the chain back up Friday morning and again on Saturday morning. Seeing how positive her staff became with every passing car paying it forward, married to the reactions of her customers when the cashier told them their meal had been taken care of, was touching, Jensen said. “No matter what’s going on, take care of each other, be positive, be happy and don’t focus on the negative, we’ll get through it,” she said.