As of Friday, July 16, 2021, Montana reports 114,663 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 90 new cases reported since Friday: 20 new cases in Flathead County, 10 new cases in Cascade County, 10 new cases in Missoula County, 10 new cases in Yellowstone County, and more new cases in 15 more Montana counties. The number of active coronavirus cases in Montana is 512. Currently, 59 people are being treated in Montana hospitals for COVID-19. The most active cases are in Flathead, Yellowstone, Cascade, Missoula, and Gallatin Counties. 1,691 people have died in Montana of COVID-19. Five more deaths have been reported in the last day. Nationwide, more than 608,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. There have been 34,000,000 cases of coronavirus in the US, and counting.

The CDC is warning of a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’. Covid-19 cases are rising in every state in the nation and in the nation’s capitol, Washington, DC, with the average of new cases at least 10% higher than a week ago — and 38 states are seeing at least a 50% increase in coronavirus cases.

Thursday’s major league baseball game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox was postponed due to positive coronavirus tests. Six Yankees players tested positive for Covid-19, in the second instance this year of breakthrough cases occurring among members of the baseball team. Three of the players with confirmed positive tests are all pitchers, and all were vaccinated.

Montana State University associate professor Leo Killsback has been awarded the 2021 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize for his two-volume history of the Cheyenne Nation. The Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln awards the prize. Killsback’s books document his research on Indigenous governance, traditional law, sovereignty and treaty rights.

Fairy Lake Road will be closed while logging operations for the North Bridgers Forest Project continue. The US Forest Service will close the upper stretch of Forest Service Road no. 74 for two weeks starting 6 p.m. Sunday, July 18. All vehicle and foot traffic on Fairy Lake Road above Mile Marker 4.4 near the Carrol Creek Trailhead will be prohibited at that time.