Another Bay Area nursing home has been hit by COVID-19, continuing to confirm health officials’ fears of the vulnerable community’s susceptibility to the virus.
Five residents at the Pacifica Nursing and Rehab Center have tested positive and one has died, Mayor Deirdre Martin told KPIX. Nursing home officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
On March 13, the facility banned outside visitors, following guidance from the federal government, according to a statement on its website.
The small oceanfront nursing home joins a growing list of high-risk communities in the Bay Area to become infected by the deadly respiratory illness.
In nearby Burlingame, two residents of a senior-living facility died and five tested positive earlier this month. Officials in San Francisco pleaded for more state and federal assistance Monday, warning of a “growing outbreak” at Laguna Honda Hospital, where two residents and nine staff members have tested positive.
In total, health officials in San Mateo County have worked with eight assisted-living facilities with confirmed cases of coronavirus since March 15, county health chief Louise Rogers said Tuesday. All eight facilities are coordinating with officials from the state health department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There were 309 total confirmed cases in San Mateo County on Tuesday, as the county death toll climbed into double digits.
It was at a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, that the first outbreak in the U.S. exploded. Eighty of its 120 residents tested positive and more than 30 died from the virus. East of Los Angeles, an outbreak at Cedar Mountain Post Acute Rehabilitation in Yucaipa has infected more than 50 residents and killed two.
The worldwide death toll stood at 44,000 on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The majority of whom were over the age of 65 or had underlying health conditions, the two populations nursing and assisted-living facilities primarily serve.
