As of Sunday, February 21, 2021, Montana reports 98,779 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 128 new cases reported in the last day: 35 in Flathead County, 35 in Gallatin County, 16 in Missoula County, 10 in Yellowstone County, and more new cases in 13 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 2,226. Statewide, 4,522 people have been hospitalized. Currently, 78 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The most active cases are in Yellowstone, Flathead, Gallatin, and Lewis & Clark Counties. 1,342 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 500,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 28,100,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus surpassed half a million people on Sunday— a milestone that underscores the grave threat the virus still poses nationwide even as more Americans get vaccinated. The death toll in the U.S. is the highest in the world, even though the country has less than 5 percent of the global population. The number of dead in the US rivals the population of Atlanta or Sacramento, California. The coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 2,462,000 people worldwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had amassed $4.7 million in her fundraising efforts to help Texans hard hit by last week’s winter storm as of Sunday evening.
The New York Democrat launched her fundraiser Thursday after extreme cold weather, ice and snow caused the power grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to fail — leading to rolling blackouts and a boil-water advisory for nearly half of Texas. The fundraiser had hit $1 million by Thursday evening. The next day, Ocasio-Cortez said that donation figures had risen to $2 million, and she announced she would visit the state. On Friday, the congresswoman said she would fly to Houston to join Democratic Texas Rep. Sylvia Garcia to distribute supplies. While in Texas, the progressive lawmaker and other Democrats visited food distribution centers, water delivery sites and toured the damage left behind from an unprecedented storm.

The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana is building its health services largely from scratch roughly a year after becoming the United States’ 574th federally recognized Indigenous tribe. Because of the pandemic, it’s doing it on hyperdrive. The long-sought recognition came just months before the pandemic took hold, arriving in time to guarantee the right to crucial health care and a tribal supply of protective COVID-19 vaccines. Federal pandemic relief dollars are speeding up the Little Shell Tribe’s ability to build its own clinic. Without the CARES Act funds, Indian Health Service and Little Shell officials said it would have likely taken years using only IHS resources to establish a clinic. The IHS already has a list of new and replacement health care facility projects nationwide estimated to cost more than $14.5 billion, yet it reported in 2019 it receives roughly $240 million each year to get that work done. At that pace, it would take 60 years to get through its current needs.