Three more deaths bring Life Care Athens toll to 12

Three more deaths were reported Friday by Life Care Center of Athens, Tennessee, as the number of fatalities at the senior living facility has risen to 12 due to COVID-19.

Jeff Ricks, the center’s executive director, said that 120 cases of coronavirus have been reported at the facility as 71 residents have tested positive along with 49 employees.

“One resident is hospitalized,” he said in a statement. “We are checking on this resident frequently and providing as much support possible. We remain in consistent communication with our medical director and local hospitals to ensure our residents are transferred if more acute care is needed.”

Ricks said that residents who have tested both positive and negative for COVID-19 are checked multiple times per day for symptoms or changes in condition.

“If a resident who tested negative begins showing any symptom that could be associated with COVID-19, we retest them,” he said.

Life Care Centers of America, based in Cleveland, Tennessee, is the nation’s largest private nursing home company.

A Life Care Center nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, has seen more than 120 cases of coronavirus infections and at least 37 deaths. That facility emerged as an early center of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

The deaths reported on Friday come after one was reported Monday at the facility.

One-third of all U.S. coronavirus deaths are nursing home residents or workers, according to The New York Times.

The newspaper reported that 28,100 residents and workers have died from the coronavirus at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The virus so far has infected more than 153,000 at some 7,700 facilities.