SEATTLE (NYTIMES) - A week after a deadly coronavirus outbreak was reported inside a nursing home in the Seattle suburbs, officials from the long-term care centre have said that 70 staff members were out sick with symptoms resembling coronavirus and six residents were also ill.

A federal strike team of nurses and doctors arrived last Saturday (March 7) to support the staff at the long-term nursing home, Life Care Centre of Kirkland, Washington, where officials have announced the deaths of 13 residents and a visitor who were infected with the virus.

Mr Tim Killian, a spokesman for the care centre, praised the workers who continued to show up even as 70 of the nursing home's 180 employees developed symptoms.

"The amount of work and stress that these staff and employees and caregivers are under is tremendous," he said. "They truly are heroes."

Earlier last Saturday, Mr Killian said that the centre was still unable to get all of its staff members tested for coronavirus. The home had received 45 virus testing kits, he said, which was not enough for the 63 remaining residents and dozens of staff members.

Later in the day, Life Care managers said the state had provided additional test kits, enough for all of the residents. It was not clear whether there were also enough kits to test staff members.

Mr Killian said that six of the residents who were still living at the centre, where visitors have been restricted from entering, had developed symptoms.

"We cannot make any promises that further exposure in the facility is not happening," he continued.

At another nursing home outside Seattle, Issaquah Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre, officials said two residents who had been sent to a hospital last Thursday were confirmed to have the coronavirus.

Another facility, Aegis Living Marymoor in Redmond, also near Seattle, reported that one of its staff members who went home ill at the end of February has now been diagnosed with coronavirus.

A senior living complex in Seattle, Ida Culver House Ravenna, previously said that one of its residents tested positive last Friday.

A number of officials, including Vice-President Mike Pence and Mr Dow Constantine, the King County executive, vowed in recent days to bring in extraordinary government resources to help the hardest-hit nursing home in Kirkland as new illnesses and deaths were being reported.

The centre has been associated with at least 44 cases of coronavirus and has been the scene of infection for most of the deaths from the virus in the United States.

Federal and state guidance on who may be tested for the virus has expanded in recent days, though much uncertainty remains. Washington state health officials have said that there are no restrictions on who can get tested, but they also have said that not everyone needs it.

The coronavirus outbreak was identified at the Kirkland centre a week ago, though testing has since revealed that a patient who went to a hospital earlier was also infected, Mr Killian said.

"Within our population, we have seen some results that have frankly concerned us with how quickly symptoms have shown, become acute and led to even death," he said.

As the crisis unfolded, Mr Pence visited Washington state and pledged the federal government's full resources to help, noting, in particular, that he would work to make sure that the Kirkland nursing home and other care centres for older adults around the country were safe.

Mr Constantine, the King County executive, has said that the county, too, would provide extensive support, including looking for ways to provide equipment to enable residents to move out of Life Care and into family homes when possible.

The Seattle area has been one of the hardest hit in the country, and the test kits have not been the only challenge. Nurses have expressed concern about the availability of protective equipment, and blood banks have been strained.

Mr Curt Bailey, who leads the non-profit Bloodworks Northwest, which supplies blood to 90 hospitals in the region, said the coronavirus outbreak has led to a rare confluence of factors that is keeping donors away: Many businesses have told employees to work from home and have cancelled blood drives; older people, who are among the most frequent blood donors, are particularly at risk from coronavirus and have been staying home; and some people are avoiding any group assembly point.

Mr Bailey said he has been encouraging people to visit donation centres in order to avert the possibility of a blood shortage.

"It has the potential to become extremely dangerous," he said.