10 residents dead amid virus outbreak at Kansas nursing home

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A coronavirus outbreak has killed 10 residents in a nursing home in a northwestern Kansas county that proportionally already had the nation's largest increase in cases over two weeks.

The health department in Norton County reported Monday night that all 62 residents and an unspecified number of employees at the Andbe Home in Norton had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The agency also said one Andbe Home resident was hospitalized, while the remaining 51 were being treated at the home.

“Steps are being taken to prevent any further outbreak, including quarantining residents in their rooms and not allowing outside visitors into the facility,” the county health department said in a statement Monday evening.

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 confirmed and probable coronavirus cases a day, its largest numbers since the pandemic reached the state in early March.

But northwestern Kansas has been hit hard by coronavirus in recent weeks, and Norton County had the largest number of new cases per 100,000 residents of any county in the U.S. for the two weeks ending Sunday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

The Kansas health department said that cases in Norton County rose from 46 two weeks ago to 340 as of Monday in Norton County. With about 5,400 residents, that was an increase of 5,484 cases per 100,000 residents, according to the state’s figures.

But the state released its report before Norton County officials confirmed that all Andbe Home residents had tested positive for coronavirus and before local...