An anonymous tipster told New Jersey police on Monday that a dead body was seen in a shed outside of a nursing home. When police arrived, they discovered 17 bodies.
The nursing home, Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, is one of the largest in the state, The New York Times reported. It’s also been a hotspot for coronavirus deaths, which has infected hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and killed thousands more. Police in Andover said there have been 68 recent deaths linked to the facility, including two nurses. Twenty-six people tested positive for COVID-19, but the cause of death for the others is not yet known.
Officials said they found the 17 new bodies packed in the nursing home’s morgue, which was intended to hold up to just four, according to the Times.
“They were just overwhelmed by the amount of people who were expiring,” Eric Danielson, the police chief in Andover, told the publication.
The nursing home continues to be inundated with sick staff and patients. More from the Times:
Of the patients who remain at the homes, housed in two buildings, 76 have tested positive for the virus; 41 staff members, including an administrator, are sick with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to county health records shared on Wednesday with a federal official.
The state Department of Health said its sending thousands of PPE supplies to nursing homes across the state. Andover’s nursing home has 700 patients, making it the state’s largest licensed facility.
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