As of Tuesday, December 29, 2020, Montana reports 80,426 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 426 new cases reported in the last day: 68 in Yellowstone County), 59 in Gallatin County, 58 in Lewis & Clark County, 44 in Flathead County, 29 in Ravalli County, 23 in Cascade County, 22 in Missoula County, and more new cases in 30 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 5,391. Statewide, 3,514 people have been hospitalized, and 218 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The most active cases are in Yellowstone, Cascade, and Lewis & Clark County. 939 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Twelve more deaths have been reported in the last day. Nationwide, more than 336,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 19,400,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

A Boston University doctor says a sufficient amount of vitamin D can cut the risk of catching coronavirus by 54%. Dr. Michael Holick is a professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine. Holick and his colleagues studied blood samples of more than 190,000 Americans from all 50 states and found that those who had deficient levels of vitamin D had 54% higher COVID positivity compared to those with adequate levels of vitamin D in the blood. The risk of getting coronavirus continued to decline as vitamin D levels increased. “The higher your vitamin D status, lower was your risk,” Holick said. Many people are vitamin D-deficient because there are only small amounts in food, Holick said. Most vitamin D comes from sun exposure and many are deprived, especially during winter months. COVID-19 positivity is strongly associated with vitamin D levels in the blood, a relationship that stayed the same across different races, sexes and age ranges, the study states.

Colorado reports the first confirmed case of a new variant of the coronavirus that is thought to have emerged from the United Kingdom, a fresh cause for concern as new research has found it to be more contagious than other strains. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced that the state identified the case in a man in his 20s with no recent travel history. It’s the first known infection from the newly identified strain in the U.S., and most experts say it’s likely that more will follow. The new variant, dubbed VUI-202012/01, is believed to be more contagious but not more lethal than other strains. “There is a lot we don’t know about this new Covid-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious,” Polis said. It’s not uncommon for viruses to mutate, and, indeed, several other variants of the coronavirus have already been reported. But until now, most of the mutations didn’t have significant impacts on how the virus spreads or how sick infected people became. Many hospitals in the U.S. are already in crisis. The worry is that a more contagious variant of the coronavirus could increase the number of new cases and put even more pressure on the health care system.

Mass vaccination programs began to roll out across Europe on Sunday after several countries reported cases of a more contagious variant of the coronavirus. The coordinated vaccination campaign of unprecedented scale in the European Union, home to almost 450 million people, is a crucial step in curbing the pandemic. The first cases of a new virus variant, which British authorities said could be 70 percent more transmissible after it was discovered in the U.K., were detected in France, Ireland and Sweden over the weekend.