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Maricopa County Reports First Long-Term Care Employee Death From COVID-19

Maricopa County reports that an employee at a long-term care facility has died from COVID-19.This was the first death of a staff member at this type of facility.

Maricopa County did not identify the facility or provide any additional details.

The number of long-term care facilities with confirmed cases of COVD-19 cases is increasing. As of Wednesday,  83 facilities had at least one resident or staff with the virus.

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More than 400 long-term care residents have contracted the virus and 70 have died, including more than a dozen at Pennington Gardens, an assisted living facility in Chandler. A spokesperson for that community said five employees have recovered, and none have died. Some residents there also are recovering.

At Sapphire of Tucson, 50 residents and 30 staffers were infected with COVID 19, though a spokesperson for that facility said the rate of new infections has leveled off.

→  Read The Latest News On The Coronavirus Disease 

KJZZ senior field correspondent Kathy Ritchie has 20 years of experience reporting and writing stories for national and local media outlets — nearly a decade of it has been spent in public media.