coronavirus update
Washington nursing home with coronavirus outbreak reported shocking escalation from 'no symptoms to death'
The epicenter of Washington state's coronavirus outbreak has a disturbing status update.
Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, outside of Seattle, has seen 15 of its residents die after contracting COVID-19, and dozens of its workers haven fallen ill. The center's remaining 55 residents are going to be tested for the virus, and while only six of them are currently sick, that doesn't necessarily mean good news, The New York Times reports.
As the Times put it, Life Care "had seen some residents go from no symptoms to death in just a matter of a few hours." "It was surprising and shocking to us that we have seen that level of escalation from symptoms to death," said Tim Killian, a spokesperson for the nursing home. Efforts to contain the spread from Life Care aren't going well either, seeing as 70 of the center's 180 workers were out sick as of Sunday, but "there weren't enough test kits yet for them," the Times reports. Three of those workers had been hospitalized, and one of them tested positive for COVID-19.
It's important to note Washington state has reported just three deaths from the new coronavirus that weren't tied to the nursing home. Life Care is home to people who are elderly or recovering from illnesses, so those who died likely had weaker immune systems and were more susceptible to COVID-19. "Kids and adults have done extremely well in terms of recovery so far," Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, notes to ABC News.
Washington has second highest number of both COVID-19 deaths and cases among all U.S. states, while New York has 142 cases and zero deaths.