Blaine County Health Department Official Message

Blaine County Health Department is actively working on coordinating Blaine County’s response to COVID-19 in light of the ever-evolving situation. Blaine County Health Department is focusing on our Essential Services. At this time those are as follows:

1. Adhering to CDC guidelines and communicating recommendations with community members and groups.

2. Coordinating messaging for timely notifications.

3. Implementing and sharing mitigation strategies to address the health and safety of Blaine County residents.

We are suspending, as of today and until further notice:

1. In-office nursing services to include blood pressure checks, walk in immunizations, injection services, etc.

If you have questions about COVID-19 you can:

1. Call the State of Montana COVID-19 question line at

1-888-333-0461

2. Leave a message with the Blaine County Health Department and it will be prioritized and returned when the appropriate respondent is available to return your call.

3. Please stay tuned to your local health department’s Facebook page and local media for updates.

Statement from Chinook Public Schools:

At this time all schools in Montana are observing a two week shutdown. This means that students and the public are not allowed in the building until further notice in order to allow us to clean the buildings and plan the best course of action to provide a safe and productive environment for our kids to learn.

The quickly adapting situation will require careful planning and may have a variety of unforeseen outcomes. We are working on plans to distribute work for students and plans to allow them to come to school and retrieve books and other items, as well as planning for meals for our free and reduced populations.

As we learn more information we will share with all of our stakeholders. Please check the website, the Blaine County Journal, Facebook and school emails for continued updates.

Thank you for your patience and consideration during this time.

Darin Hannum, Superintendent, Chinook Public Schools

Statement from Mark Beckman

MHSA Spring Activities Status:

The MHSA Executive Board, during a conference call to conduct Association business on Monday morning, took the following action regarding MHSA Spring Activities:

• All MHSA spring activities will be indefinitely suspended until further notice. This includes practices and contests/meet/festivals. The Executive Board will reevaluate this situation on April 13th and any additional information regarding spring activities will be provided as it becomes available.

• If spring activities are resumed, the practice requirement for sports at that time will be five practices from resumption except for golf which will be the normal two practices required.

• Post season formats will be adjusted by conferences as necessary with MHSA approval.

With a very fluid situation developing by the second we at the Blaine County Journal ~ News Opinion will do our very best to keep our readers informed of the latest news. In addition to our Wednesday paper we will update our website: blainecoutnyjournal.com as news comes in. Please see page A3 for more information.