DULUTH – Three people have died from a coronavirus outbreak at an assisted living center in Duluth, the first Duluth-area deaths in the pandemic.
There have been 17 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among the 138 residents of St. Ann's Residence as of Thursday, executive director Scott Johnson said. Five remain hospitalized.
Among the three deaths was the first person at St. Ann's to test positive for the respiratory infection several days ago.
"They went into the hospital with unrelated events and had the sniffles," Johnson said. "The virus hits fast ... the horror of 'I'm fine' to 'I'm not.' "
The Minnesota Department of Health said Thursday that a man in his 70s was the first person in St. Louis County to die from COVID-19, and on Friday confirmed a fourth person had died in the county. The state relies on an explicit mention of COVID-19 as a cause of death for its count.
"This is a very somber day for us," said Amy Westbrook, the county's public health director. "To a certain extent, we knew we likely would see deaths from COVID-19 here, but it is still heartbreaking to have it confirmed."
Last week, there were a dozen cases confirmed in all of St. Louis County. Confirmed cases have nearly doubled in the past two days.
Westbrook said her department is not predicting how many deaths COVID-19 will cause in the state's geographically largest county or when cases will peak.