New COVID cases in Liberty, Hill Counties; Rocky Boy changes how reporting

New cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Liberty County, its first since March, and Hill County, and Rocky Boy Health Center, the COVID-19 incident command center at Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation announced it is changing how it is reporting cases confirmed at the center.

The state COVID-19 tracking map this morning reported five cases in Liberty County, which had been at one case reported in March until now.

Hill County Health Department reported Tuesday afternoon that six new cases had been confirmed in the county, three people in their 50s, one in their 60s and two in their 20s.

That brings the totals for the county to 75 cases, with 28 active, 45 recovered and two deaths.

Rocky Boy Health Center reported four new cases, including one confirmed in Cascade County.

The health center announced that it would now list active and recovered cases only for residents of the reservation, rather than all cases confirmed at the health center regardless of where they lived.

The health center Tuesday reported eight active cases on the reservation and 36 recovered cases.

The cases listed by the health center could be residents of Hill or Chouteau counties and would be included in the totals listed by those counties’ health departments.

Cases confirmed by Rocky Boy Health Center in people who do not live on the reservation also will be included in the totals by health departments for the county of residence of the person confirmed with COVID-19.

Under state and federal health laws, health departments do not list where in a county people with confirmed cases live.

With ongoing cases and changes in how cases are reportedto and by, the state tracking map also has had some issues on up-to-date numbers, and some of the health departments are recomming people go to their Facebook pages or websites for up--to-date information on cases in the counties, where that is available.

Blaine County Health Department posted Tuesday that it will only post updates when numbers change. The post reported that Blaine County as of Tuesday evening had 15 total cases, one active and 14 inactive.

The last Chouteau County post was on Aug. 18, reporting the last case in that county had been reported as recovered, with a total of 10 recovered cases listed by the state.

Outside of the one March case in Liberty County and one of the cases in Hill County reported in March, the rest of the cases have been confirmed from July 4 on, when a surge in the area occurred.

Statewide, the state tracking map today listed 162 new cases in Montana, with a total of 6,785 cases confirmed in the state and 98 deaths.