Cascade County added 85 new COVID cases over the last week, a significant drop from previous weeks, according to the weekly update from the City-County Health Department.

That brings the county’s total cases to 25,004 since the start of the pandemic.

The new case rate is down to 14.9 per 100,000, a drop from last week’s 166.1 per 100,000 rate.

County COVID numbers coming down, CCHD staff catching up on backlog

The case rate is the average of daily new cases over a seven day period and is calculated on Wednesdays.

The positivity rate is 5.8 percent, according to CCHD.

According to CCHD, the community level of transmission remains high.

There were no new COVID related deaths and the total for the county is 312.

County COVID case rate continuing decline

There weer 61 new breakthrough cases over the last week, bringing the cumulative total since February 2021 to 2,801, according to CCHD.

A breakthrough case is when a fully vaccinated person tests positive for COVID. A person is considered fully vaccinated when they have complete the initial series of a vaccine, which is two doses for Pfizer and Moderna and one for Johnson and Johnson.

There have been 94,062 total doses of the vaccine administered in the county, according to the state dashboard, and 37,997 or 50 percent of the eligible population, are fully immunized.

As of March 7, there were six COVID patients hospitalized at Benefis Health System, according to the hospital. Of those, three were vaccinated. Three were in the ICU and one was on a ventilator, all were unvaccinated, according to Benefis.

As of March 8, there were eight active COVID cases associated with Great Falls Public Schools.