Life Care of Athens, Tennessee, has 54 residents who tested positive for COVID-19

More than 50 residents of an East Tennessee nursing home have tested positive for COVID-19, and officials are awaiting additional test results as they work to gauge the extent of the outbreak within the facility's walls.

In a statement Monday, Life Care Center of Athens said 54 of its residents had tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus. A total of 91 residents had received their test results as of Monday, administrators said, meaning 59% of them tested positive.

Assisted living facilities generally house older people with health problems who are more at risk of dying from COVID-19. Such facilities, where residents and staff interact in close quarters, have proven to be hotspots for the virus across the country.

"In an effort to fully understand the spread of the virus, 100% of our residents were tested over the past few days," Jeff Ricks, executive director of Life Care of Athens, said in his statement Monday.

Since test results typically take three to five days to be processed, more residents may test positive in the coming days.

"As results come back, our number of positive cases are being appropriately reported to all the required agencies, and we remain in consistent communication with residents' family members," Ricks said. "We are strictly following guidelines from the CDC, the Tennessee State Department of Health and the local department of health to protect the safety of our residents and associates."

Testing for all employees was being completed Monday, Ricks said.

"As of now, patients who test positive are separated from those who test negative," he said. "We have also paused admissions because we want our focus to remain on our current residents and associates."

Ricks did not include the number of employees who have tested positive in his statement, nor did he say how many residents and employees the facility has in all. He did not say how many residents have been hospitalized due to the virus, nor did he say whether many of the infected residents have symptoms.

Knox News sent those questions and others to Ricks, but he did not respond Tuesday.

Brandi Armstrong, spokeswoman for Starr Regional Medical Center in Athens, told Knox News the hospital has treated "fewer than 10 patients from Life Care Center of Athens, some of whom have been treated and released, treated and admitted or transferred to another facility."

The number of COVID-19 cases detected in McMinn County jumped from 14 to 65 on Monday, then to 70 on Tuesday, according to figures from the Tennessee Department of Health. That spike appears to be due to the outbreak at Life Care of Athens, which is situated in a town of 14,000 that sits 60 miles southwest of Knoxville.

No deaths had been attributed to the virus in McMinn County as of Tuesday.

The health department in McMinn County, population 54,000, is run by the state. Health services are provided at a building in the county, where drive-through coronavirus testing has been offered in recent weeks. Administrative services are handled by a Tennessee Department of Health regional office that covers 10 counties surrounding Chattanooga.

Amanda Goodard, spokeswoman for the regional office, declined to provide any information about the outbreak at Life Care of Athens. She said only that the state does not plan to release updated numbers of cases at assisted living facilities until Friday.

Outbreak is 'a stark reminder'

The news of the outbreak at Life Care of Athens came as state and local officials laid out plans to reopen Tennessee's economy beginning this week. Many nursing homes, however, remain closed to visitors.

"This situation at Life Care is a stark reminder of just how contagious the virus is, especially in confined areas," McMinn County Mayor John Gentry said in a Facebook video Monday.

He said that the existence of an outbreak inside the facility doesn't mean there will be one in the larger community.

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Gentry said he has been in touch with officials at Starr Regional, half a mile from Life Care, to make sure the hospital has enough resources in the event there is a surge of patients from the nursing home.

The hospital, owned by LifePoint Health, has 118 acute care beds, according to its website. Hospital officials declined to say how many were occupied Tuesday.

"Hospital capacity is incredibly fluid and changes rapidly," Armstrong, the hospital spokeswoman, wrote in a statement. “We are leveraging all appropriate regional resources and working collaboratively with neighboring health systems to ensure we are well coordinated in meeting the needs of our patients and community.”

Life Care in Washington was a hotspot in March

As of April 22, the Tennessee Department of Health reported 375 cases and 37 deaths across residents and staff of 22 nursing homes in the state.

In a particularly severe outbreak, at least 161 residents at Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing tested positive for COVID-19. At least 19 of them have died, according to the most recent data from the Tennessee Department of Health.

One of the first major coronavirus outbreaks detected in the U.S. occurred at a Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, in late February and early March. Life Care Centers of America is based in Cleveland, Tennessee, and "operates or manages more than 200 skilled nursing, rehabilitation, Alzheimer's and senior living campuses in 28 states," according to the company's website.

Federal inspectors have since fined the Washington facility more than $600,000, finding its leadership failed to properly handle the outbreak that went on to kill at least 37 people, or about a fourth of its residents, the Seattle Times reported.

In Tennessee, nursing homes are regularly inspected by state health officials. Life Care Center of Athens has not been cited for infection control issues since 2016, when two staffers were seen serving food with their bare hands, records show. That problem was soon fixed, and no such issues have been recorded since.

Email Travis Dorman at travis.dorman@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @travdorman. If you enjoy Travis' coverage, support strong local journalism by subscribing for full access to all our content on every platform.