Six People Have Died From Coronavirus in Washington State

King County officials are preparing to buy a motel to house people infected with coronavirus.

Disinfectant at a Costco in Northeast Portland. (Justin Katigbak)
By Aaron Mesh

Six people are dead from COVID-19 in Washington state today, four of them residents of a nursing home outside Seattle where the virus spread rapidly.

The New York Times first reported three additional deaths of residents at a Kirkland, Wash. nursing home this morning. Crosscut reported another death in Snohomish County.

King County officials told the Times today that they are preparing to buy a motel to house people infected with coronavirus.

The deadly spread of coronavirus through LifeCare Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash., has made the Seattle area the nation's center of the illness. Elderly people and those with underlying medical conditions are most vulnerable to the effects of the virus, so the spread of the disease in a nursing home was especially dire.

Washington remains the only U.S. state where coronavirus has killed people.

In Oregon, three people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 so far, two of them in the Portland area. The third case, in rural Umatilla County, was announced this morning.

Related: Across Portland, a sense of unease—and no hand sanitizer for 50 miles.

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