All Residents Of A Kansas Nursing Home Test Positive For COVID-19

All 62 residents at a nursing home in northwest Kansas have tested positive for COVID-19 and 10 of them have died, local health officials said Monday.

The outbreak at the privately owned Andbe Home in Norton County has forced 51 of the surviving residents into quarantine at the facility. One remaining resident has been hospitalized. An unspecified number of staff has also tested positive, the Norton County Health Department said in a release.

The announcement comes amid a rise in COVID-19 cases across the state in recent weeks. As of Monday, 72,968 people have tested positive for the virus in Kansas and 872 have died. Both numbers are roughly double what the state reported in late August.

Nationwide, COVID-19 cases have also risen in the general population and in nursing homes. The increase over the last four weeks comes after  new nursing home cases had dropped significantly in August and early September, according to data from John Hopkins and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL), which represents more than 14,000 nursing homes and assisted living communities across the country, warned Monday that nursing homes could soon experience another spike in cases due to community spread.

“The number one factor in keeping COVID out of our nursing homes, so we can protect our vulnerable population, is reducing the level of the virus in the surrounding community,” said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of AHCA/NCAL, in a statement.