Montana COVID-19 tracker

With the spread of the highly infectious delta variant across Montana, COVID-19 numbers are beginning to rival what the state went through at the peaks of the pandemic last fall and winter. Below is a series of data visualizations highlighting how the state and its counties are faring as the pandemic continues. The historical data used in the visualizations was provided by John Hopkins Medical Hospital and is updated Monday through Friday with data provided by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Cases

The state reported 1,315 new cases of COVID-19 on October 8, 2021. Bringing the number of active cases in the state to 12,539 and the seven-day average of new cases to 953. With the new cases, the state’s cumulative case count since the onset of the pandemic is 158,680 — of those infections, 7,998 have led to hospitalizations across the state with 463 active hospitalizations. The state also reported 9 new COVID-19 related deaths on Friday putting the seven-day death average at 9. Since recording its first death in March of 2020, 2,079 Montanans have died from COVID-19 related illness.

Vaccinations

The state reached a milestone in late August when it announced 50 percent of eligible Montanans were fully vaccinated against the infection. As of October 8, Montana has administered 1,033,867 doses of the vaccine with 493,475 or 53 percent of the state’s eligible population, fully vaccinated. Health experts estimate that between 70 and 85 percent of the population needs to be fully vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. There is no available data yet on how many eligible residents have received their third booster shot.