Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Best wishes for a safe, socially distanced holiday.

Montana has a terrible outbreak of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from COVID-19. Please, everyone, stop gathering. Wear a face mask over your nose and mouth whenever you’re out of your own home. Keep your distance from others.

As of Wednesday, November 25, 2020, Montana reports 58,565 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 1,013 new cases reported in the last day: 159 in Gallatin County, 114 in Flathead County, 112 in Yellowstone County, 106 in Missoula County, 100 in Lewis & Clark County, 96 in Cascade County,and more new cases in 36 more Montana counties. Statewide, 2,474 people have been hospitalized, and 462 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 15,901. The most active cases are in Yellowstone and Flathead County, Cascade, Lewis & Clark, Missoula and Gallatin Counties. 652 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Nationwide, more than 261,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 12,800,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

An outbreak of illness and COVID deaths at an Illinois veterans nursing home has prompted a state investigation. The outbreak has infected nearly 200 residents and staff members, and killed 27 veterans. The current outbreak was identified in late October when a staff member and a resident tested positive for the virus. The home was not largely impacted by the pandemic until then. In fact, two-thirds of residents and employees tested positive since the beginning of this month.

If any coronavirus vaccine wins regulatory approval and becomes available to people in the coming months, its speedy development will have smashed what was previously thought possible. But rolling out Covid-19 shots to even a small fraction of the world’s 7.8 billion people will require conquering an epic supply-chain challenge at a scale that dwarfs any other in history. Vaccines have been delivered around the world before, but never has the demand for one set of drugs been so immediate or universal. All of the headaches encountered with previous campaigns will be amplified by orders of magnitude. The numbers are daunting. The U.S. pharma giant Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, which applied for emergency regulatory approval Friday, plan to produce 1.3 billion doses next year. The Massachusetts biotech company Moderna will make another billion doses if its regulatory bid is successful. But many experts warn that even supplying people around the world who are deemed to be priorities — health care workers, the elderly and the most susceptible — will be a challenge. Not only must vaccines be shipped at unprecedented quantities and speeds, but they must also be transported at temperatures cold enough to remain effective.

The NFL has officially postponed its biggest Thanksgiving Day football game – the Baltimore Ravens vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers — after multiple players tested positive for COVID-19. The Ravens-Steelers game was scheduled for Thanksgiving night, but has been moved to Sunday afternoon, November 29. Earlier this week, Baltimore’s top 2 running backs — Mark Ingram and J.K. Dobbins — were ruled out for Thursday night after testing positive for COVID.