As of Wednesday, December 22, 2021, Montana reports 195,417 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 253 new cases of coronavirus infection reported since yesterday: 58 new cases in Gallatin County, 45 new cases in Yellowstone County, 35 new cases in Cascade County, 21 new cases in Flathead County, 21 new cases in Lewis & Clark County, and more new cases in 235 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 1,639. Currently, 125 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. 2,890 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 808,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 51,300,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

The Biden administration is extending the moratorium on federal student loan payments through May 1 of next year, as the highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus poses a new threat to the economy. President Joe Biden said that “millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments.”

The SpaceX rocket factory near Los Angeles is the site of the largest recent countywide workplace outbreak of coronavirus cases. At least 132 employees have tested positive for COVID-19, the most in one spot in Los Angeles County.

Fifty-six Yellowstone bison have been relocated to Native American tribes. The buffalo were sent to the Yakama Nation in Washington and the Modoc Nation in Oklahoma. It’s the first time that two large, intact families of bison have been transported to tribal lands through the Bison Conservation Transfer Program — a concerted effort by tribal, state, federal and nonprofit partners to divert more disease-free Yellowstone bison away from slaughter.