10 virus deaths in state; feds to investigate nursing home
SEATTLE — The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed to 11 on Wednesday with a patient succumbing in California — the first reported fatality outside Washington state — as federal authorities announced an investigation of the Seattle-area nursing home where most of the victims were stricken.
Officials in California’s Placer County, near Sacramento, said an elderly person who tested positive after returning from a San Francisco-to-Mexico cruise had died. The victim had underlying health problems, authorities said.
Washington also announced another death, bringing its total to 10. Officials said a woman in her 90s died Tuesday.
Like most of those who died, she was a resident of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland. At least 40 cases have been reported in the Seattle area, where researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks. Nine of those cases are in Snohomish County, including one death.
Seema Verma, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency is sending inspectors to Life Care along with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to figure out what happened and determine whether the nursing home followed guidelines for preventing infections.
https://www.heraldnet.com/northwest/despite-deaths-so-far-no-shutdown-orders-in-washington/
= new reply since forum marked as read
