As of Wednesday, October 21, 2020, Montana reports 24,712 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 624 new cases reported in the last day: 139 in Yellowstone County, 57 in Gallatin County, 54 in Flathead County, 45 in Missoula County, 43 in Roosevelt County, 39 in Lewis & Clark County, 30 in Cascade County, 28 in Hill County, 24 in Big Horn County, 21 in Lake County, 15 in Glacier County, 14 in each of Dawson and Ravalli Counties, 13 in Park County, and more new cases in 27 more Montana counties. Statewide, 1,068 people have been hospitalized, and 345 people are currently being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. There are 9,352 active coronavirus cases in Montana. The most active cases are in Yellowstone, Flathead and Glacier, Missoula, Cascade, and Lewis & Clark Counties. 275 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 221,000 Americans have died. There have been 8,320,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

An emergency room nurse is urging Montana residents to take politics out of the fight against the coronavirus. Health care workers come from a variety of political, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds, Charlotte Skinner says, “but we’ve always found a common ground to stand on. And that common ground is called science, evidence-based practice and a patient-first mentality. I have never and I will never run into the room of a patient in distress and ask them how they vote.” Skinner is a registered nurse at St. Peter’s Health in Helena, which reported on Tuesday that all of its beds were full. Nurse Skinner says, “People in health care don’t discriminate and neither does this virus. I’m asking you to stop segregating yourselves into maskers and anti-maskers and to stand with us on the common ground of science and evidence, which is clearly telling us that masking works,” Skinner said. Montana has the fifth-highest rate of newly confirmed infections per capita, and Montana hospitals are reaching a breaking point, Skinner said. But the pressure can be relieved if a majority of residents wear masks consistently and diligently. Skinner says, “We are on the brink of seeing a surge capacity like we have never seen before. And make no mistake, this will affect our ability to provide the best possible care.” Montana residents are urged to wear masks, frequently wash hands and physically distance from other people to reduce the spread of coronavirus and to reduce the strain on the state’s healthcare workers.

Gallatin County reports a sixth death from COVID-19, a woman in her 90s who died on Friday at the long-term care facility where she was a resident. She had previously been hospitalized. Earlier in October, another Gallatin County woman in her 90s died from COVID-19 at a long-term care facility. The two deaths occurred at different facilities. As of Tuesday, Gallatin County had active COVID-19 cases in each of seven different long-term care facilities. Most of the facilities have just a few cases, although, as of Tuesday morning, one facility had 10 cases. The number of COVID-19 cases in Gallatin County has been increasing since September. The seven-day average of new cases reached 56 on Tuesday — an all-time high.

The Cascade County Health Board is mulling new building capacity and gathering restrictions in an attempt to curb a six-week explosion in local COVID-19 cases that health officials are now calling a public health crisis. In Great Falls, between Benefis Health System and Great Falls Clinic, 68 people are in the hospital for COVID-19. The intensive care unit at Benefis has 21 patients, 19 with COVID-19, which is 113 percent of capacity. And 13 people have died of COVID-19 in Cascade County.

Yellowstone County already has implemented new restrictions, limiting gatherings of people to no more than 25 and requiring mask wearing indoors and outdoors when you’re not in your own home.