KIRKLAND, WASHINGTON (NYT) – The hardest day of MS Debbie de los Angeles’ life had been the day she put her mother into a nursing home. That was before the coronavirus outbreak.

As fatal infections spread through the Life Care Centre in suburban Seattle, where her 85-year-old mother lived, Ms de los Angeles had tried not to worry. Nurses were monitoring her mother’s temperature. They reassured her that her mother had no fever, cough or other signs of infection.

But at 4.15am on Tuesday (March 3), a nurse called with troubling news. Her mother, Ms Twilla Morin, had developed a 40 deg C temperature. They were giving her Tylenol. Then the nurse confirmed her do-not-resuscitate orders.

“We anticipate that she, too, has the coronavirus,” a voicemail message from a nurse said. “We do not anticipate her fighting this.”

Moving into a nursing home can be a wrenching choice for aging parents and their adult children. But families said they never imagined facing a public health crisis in the quiet hallways where they once believed their loved ones would be safe.

In the week since the Kirkland nursing facility became the focal point of an unfolding coronavirus outbreak in the Pacific North-west, daily life has stalled into a sleepless, slow-motion agony. With visits restricted, families now call and call for updates from the overworked nursing staff. The families wonder whether they should demand a visit, risking their own health and wider contamination. Some want their parents moved to the hospital or to a different facility but have no idea who else would care for fragile patients potentially exposed to a deadly disease.

“I just feel ill that my mom could be dying alone,” said Ms Vanessa Phelps, whose 90-year-old mother has chronic breathing problems and has lived at the facility for four years. “It’s pure panic, and I can do nothing. I have no control.”

Some families now call twice a day to ask how their octogenarian parents are feeling and reassure them about the alarming television news transmitted into their rooms, much of it featuring the crisis right there inside the centre. Some video chat on tablet computers designed for older users. One woman stood outside her mother’s window to catch a glimpse between the slats.

It has been like seeing a ship sink without lifeboats. “We are watching from the shore and not being able to do anything,” said Mr Alex Stewart, whose 95-year-old grandmother lives in the nursing centre and has been crocheting a small blanket in anticipation of Mr Stewart’s baby – her first great-grandchild. “It is a very helpless feeling.”

Nobody knows for sure how the coronavirus first entered the facility, which has become a grim warning of how the virus can spread particularly quickly inside nursing homes. At least eight of the 14 coronavirus deaths in the United States have been Life Care residents, and at least a half-dozen other people connected to the facility have been sickened by the virus.

Even amid intense scrutiny of the nursing centre and its record of handling infections, families said they were struggling to get basic information from Life Care’s leaders and public health officials. They said they had spent untold hours on the phone, being shunted between county and state government offices and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

One man said he called a federal hotline and introduced himself as the son of an octogenarian Life Care resident. The response, he said, was concerning: He was asked whether there had been any coronavirus cases in his area.

Many residents inside the 190-bed facility went days without being tested for coronavirus, families said, even as they and their roommates started coughing and feeling feverish. Families worry that the true number of infections may be higher than official totals.

Experts in infectious diseases say older people, many of whom have underlying health problems and respiratory problems, are particularly vulnerable to the virus and have a higher risk of death.

“People keep saying, ‘Why don’t you just go and bust them out?'” said Mr Kevin Connolly, whose 81-year-old father-in-law Jerry Wall has been at the home for about a year recovering from heart failure. “It’s his home,” Mr Connolly said. “He likes the food; he likes the care; he has friends there.”

At a news conference Wednesday, Dr Jeff Duchin, an officer for public health in Seattle and King County, said teams were now working to test every Life Care resident for the virus and apologised for a breakdown in communication. A federal disaster medical assistance team was expected to arrive at the centre on Thursday.

Ms Ellie Basham, executive director of Life Care, said in a statement that it was assigning every resident a representative who could answer questions from family members.

Families welcomed the promised help and praised the nurses and caregivers who showed up to work even as the virus spread and as several employees tested positive. It appeared that the virus tests were under way on Thursday; one relative reported that her father had been swabbed.

Ms De los Angeles, 65, said that her mother, Ms Morin, had never wanted to move into a nursing home.

Ms Morin had been a numbers whiz, once halting an embezzlement scheme while working as a bookkeeper. She had also learnt to day-trade stocks and would get up early for the market open on Wall Street, three time zones ahead of her home in Kennewick, in south-eastern Washington state.

Ms Morin moved into her first nursing home about four years ago after she could no longer stand or walk by herself. As her dementia deepened, Ms Morin sometimes confused Ms de los Angeles, her only child, for her sister.

Early on Wednesday morning, Ms de los Angeles woke to a new voicemail message from Life Care. Her mother had died at 2.10am, the message said. Because of the “unique situation” at the home, her mother’s remains had to be picked up by the coroner, a nurse said.

By late morning, Ms de los Angeles and her husband, Bob, were sitting on living-room couches at their home in Monroe, Washington, surrounded by their four grown sons, looking at old photos and sharing memories of Ms Morin.

They had to arrange her cremation and decide whether it was safe to pick up her ring, teddy bear and other belongings. They were waiting for test results to determine whether Ms Morin had contracted the coronavirus. It had been a month since the family’s last visit, so they were not worried about being infected themselves. Ms De los Angeles said she simply needed to know.

“I still question what’s going on in that nursing home,” Ms de los Angeles said. “They gown up. They wear masks. But the virus is still making its way around.”

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