Coronavirus kills 10 in Kansas nursing home

Ten residents of a nursing home in northwest Kansas have died from the coronavirus, health officials said. All 62 residents of the Andbe Home in Norton County, Kansas as well as an unspecified number of employees, have tested positive for the infection. Norton, Kansas resident Robert Brooks told Nebraska TV station KGHI that his uncle, who was about 68 years old, was among those who died. He said the coronavirus had kept him and others from visiting their loved ones.

The local health department said residents are being quarantined in their rooms and the home is not allowing outside visitors. The outbreak at the nursing home came after the state Department of Health and Environment last week reported more than 100 cases at the state’s prison in Norton over the two weeks ending Wednesday.

Kansas is seeing an average of more than 700 new coronavirus cases a day, its largest numbers since early March. And Norton County, in the rural northwestern part of the state, already had proportionally the nation’s largest increase in cases over two weeks.

This all comes amid rising coronavirus rates in much of the United States. New virus cases in the U.S. have surged in recent weeks from a daily average of about 42,000 in early October to about 58,000 - the highest level since late July, according to Johns Hopkins University.