10 April 2020 — 1413 mdt

Bullock’s fast action slows virus’ spread

Montana’s Covid case rate is approximately
one-fourth of the national case rate

Montana’s rate of 32.6 confirmed Covid-19 cases per 100,000 persons is 23 percent of the national confirmed case rate of 140.3 per 100,000 persons.

These rates were calculated from data downloaded this morning from the Montana Covid-19 website and the Covid Tracking Project. The population estimates for April, 2020, are based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s intercensal estimates. Download 2020 estimate for USA & states. Dowload 2020 estimates for Montana and counties.

The number of confirmed Covid cases in Montana and nationwide is based on testing, and may underestimate the true extent of the infections’s spread.

Flathead County is right at the state average, with 33 cases per 100K. Silver Bow and Yellowstone Counties also are at the state average.

Gallatin County, however, at 109 cases per 100K, is at 334 percent of the Montana average.

Montana’s other large counties, Cascade, Lewis and Clark, and Missoula, have rates of approximately two-thirds of the state average.

The outlier of outliers is tiny Toole County, population ≈ 4,800, which has 18 confirmed cases, has a rate of 375 confirmed cases per 100K, 1,150 percent of the Montana average and 267 percent of the national average. Toole’s cases appear clustered in an extended living center.

Montana’s governor, Steve Bullock, took decisive action early to apply social distancing in Montana, taking steps making it possible to remain in their homes and not having their utilities shut off during the crisis. Now avaricistic and myopic landlords — the “throw ‘em out in the cold and germs crowd right out of a Charles Dickens novel ” — are resisting Bullocks moratorium on evicting people having trouble making their rent. Social distancing is saving lives, and in the long run, that will save those greedy landlords money.