As of Friday, February 4, 2022. Montana reports 250,029 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with a new state high number since the start of the pandemic, 4,374 new cases of coronavirus infection reported since yesterday: 678 new cases in Cascade County, 633 new cases in Yellowstone County, 628 new cases in Missoula County, 425 new cases in Lewis & Clark County, 395 new cases in Flathead County, 221 new cases in Gallatin County, and more new cases in 48 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 15,713. All of Montana’s 56 counties report active cases. Currently, 328 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. 3,031 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 898,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 76,100,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

As the coronavirus continues on with new variants and continued transmission and illness, Americans — exhausted by two years of pandemic — are increasingly asking when masks can come off indoors. “Not yet,” say both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and many infectious disease experts.

In Montana, north and southbound travel to and from Canada reopened Thursday after a protest of vaccine requirements for truckers effectively shut down the border at Sweet Grass for nearly a week. Travel on the Canadian side of Montana’s northern border crossing had been at a standstill since last Saturday as truck drivers established a blockade to protest Canada’s mandate that truckers be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to enter the country.