Official: Montana nursing home virus outbreak appears over

Official: Montana nursing home virus outbreak appears over
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A state health official says a COVID-19 outbreak that started at a north-central Montana nursing home and caused six deaths appears to be over.

Jim Murphy, the health department's Communicable Disease Control and Prevention Bureau chief, says while there are still seven active cases in Toole County, the patients at Marias Heritage Center remain in isolation, and no new cases have been diagnosed in weeks.

Murphy says it sometimes takes people four or five weeks to test clear of the coronavirus.

Gov. Steve Bullock says thousands of Montana businesses and hundreds of residents applied for coronavirus relief funding starting Thursday and that more will be available.